Instinctual Release
by CarnagexElite
Summary: Naruto has finally become a genin, and is one step closer to achieving his dream of becoming hokage. He has finally learned about the nine-tailed fox residing within him, though an imminent attack by disguised assailants will have far reaching consequences that change Naruto and everyone he is destined to meet, and out of this mess rise three legends that even rival the sannin!
1. Chapter 1

Instinctual Release

Chapter 1

Naruto Uzumaki was both happy and sad at the same time. It is was a state that he was not used to being in as he made his way home for the night, and he kept turning the day's events over in his mind. On the one hand he had become a genin and was looking forward to team placement tomorrow, but on the other he had learned from Mizuki that he was the container for the nine-tailed fox demon that had destroyed the village the day that he was born 12 years ago. Despite what everyone thought of him, Naruto wasn't stupid (he just had a short attention span) and had begun to suspect that the villainous glares he received from everyone and what basically amounted to full ostracism had something to do with the fact that he shared a birthday with the day the fox attacked the village. He also suspected now more than ever that his father was the yondaime hokage, as he recognised his own resemblance to the man, and figured that the reason he had been chosen was because the yondaime could not bear to force another's child to live the life that Naruto was going to live. Naruto went to bed rather early that evening, the exhaustion of the day catching up with him.

He 'awoke' to find himself staring at a cage bordering on 50 metres in height if how miniscule he felt next to it was any comparison. He noticed the kanji for seal some ten metres above him, and pieced the clues together to realise that the gate was inside his mind, and this was where the nine tails was sealed. He was kind of miffed at the fact that his mindscape was a god damn sewer of all things, but had little time to reflect on it as a voice that barely registered as more than a vibration due to how deep it was rumbled through him. **"So this is the pitiful human that is to be my container for the next hundred years? How unlucky for you, I expected them to have at least chosen someone who was befitting of my power, not some snivelling rat! When the time comes, I will find your death oh so pleasurable". **Naruto jumped. Violently. Then stared in horror as a fox the size of the gate appeared, eyes and teeth glistening, with the silhouettes of all nine of his tails swaying behind him. Naruto began to feel light-headed, and knew he was going to faint, (he briefly pondered the physical dynamics of being able to faint within his own mind) before darkness took him, and the voice of the nine tails rang out once more. **"When the time comes, you and I shall become only I, and you will watch as despair takes its place at your side."**

The sound of shouting and banging brought Naruto to consciousness within the real world, and he hurriedly pulled his clothes on and prepared to face the mob of civilians that were currently baying for his blood. Some things never change. They broke through the door, and Naruto assumed the stance that he learned at the academy a few years ago that finally allowed him to deal with the civilians that had brought him to brink of death more times than he cared to count. However, this time his face turned to one of horror as he noticed not one but two ANBU masks in the crowd. They then stopped the civilians, while one held him down and the other brought his facemask to Naruto's ear. "For justice," the slightly distorted voice whispered, as the ANBU delivered a powerful chakra infused blow to Naruto's stomach, and then another to his head. The pain was more than Naruto had ever experienced before, and slipped into unconsciousness as the mob then beat him within his own home.

xxxx

Hiruzen Sarutobi, the sandaime hokage, was not a man who worried more than was necessary. Despite that, he could feel a breakdown and a heart attack just waiting to happen as he gazed at the still recovering form of one Naruto Uzumaki. It had been two weeks Naruto had been attacked in his home, one last ditch effort to kill the boy before he became an official ninja, and Sarutobi was so affected that he delayed the team selections until Naruto woke up. Both the hokage and Iruka Umino, who had not left the boy's bedside once, snapped their heads up from their own personal contemplations as a vague groan escaped the mouth of the patient in front of them. Naruto opened his eyes slowly, getting used to the dim light that was entering his room from the twilight outside of the hospital. Much to his chagrin, Sarutobi had had to permanently reserve this room in the hospital for the boy since he was two, and only allowed his most trusted medics in, so that Naruto wouldn't be harmed.

Naruto was now fully conscious, and turned his head to look at the two people sitting next to him and gargled out something in a high, dry and hoarse voice. After Iruka gave him some water, he sat up and tried again. "W-where am I?" he asked, a look of confusion upon his face. Sarutobi took the initiative and said, "You're in hospital Naruto, you were attacked by the villagers again, only this time there were two ANBU with them that I have so been unable to identify." Naruto seemed to accept this, and both the hokage and Iruka began to breathe easy, when Naruto said something that caused a small part of both of the loving people next to Naruto's bed heart's to die. "Who are you?"


	2. Chapter 2

Instinctual Release

Chapter 2

A/N: Updates will not be regular unfortunately, however I will try to post short(-ish) chapters so that instead of large posts being few and far between, you will get small chapters often. Now then, on with the story, what awaits Naruto and his friends?

Disclaimer: Forgot last chapter but I unfortunately do not own Naruto or the anime would not be ending this year.

xxxx

Sasuke was, in a word, bored. It had been three works since the hokage had postponed the selections due to the dobe getting hurt, probably tripping over his own shadow if experience was anything to go by. He made his way to the training ground in the Uchiha compound, and began his monotonous, and boring, training.

xxxx

Sakura was currently having a rather furious hair pulling contest with Ino in front of everyone, as they battled for the right to perv over Sasuke while he trained. Shikamaru was napping on his feet, (a skill passed down in the Nara clan for generations, to the point that some suspected that it was actually a kekkai genkai) and Choji was watching in abject interest while munching on his favourite crisps. Seeing as Shikamaru was sleeping, Choji decided to honour his best friend's sentiments, and muttered out a word that sounded distinctly like "Troublesome."

xxxx

The book fell to the ground and the woman known as the Genjutsu Mistress, Kurenai Yuhi, stomped on it violently. One could just make out the name of the book 'Icha Icha Paradise', as the man that the book belonged wept unashamedly at the destruction of his favourite smut.

xxxx

Sarutobi accompanied Naruto on his first visit out of the hospital in three weeks, with said Naruto having only been awake for the final week of that period. Much to the hokage's dismay, Naruto's memory was severely damaged, with the boy not remembering anything save the life skills he had developed after years of living alone, along with his ninja skills. If Sarutobi hadn't addressed Naruto by name, he wouldn't have known said name. If there was a silver lining, Sarutobi reckoned it was that Naruto seemed to have no recollection of his life within the village, and so Sarutobi was accompanying him to his friends so that he was not attacked by the villagers again while he was out in the open, and so maybe they could jog Naruto's memory and help him remember some of his lighter moments. Seeing as Naruto viewed Sarutobi as his grandfather, he was not expecting an improvement.

What surprised the hokage was that in his week of recovery, which was an extraordinarily long time for him due to the healing factor he got from the nine tails' chakra, Naruto's speed and strength returned to what they were before the incident, and then got better in the matter of a few days. He was faster, stronger, more agile and his senses were all incredibly sharp. The hokage suspected that the fox was involved, but he couldn't say anything without worrying Naruto and without evidence. However, Sarutobi was not a god of shinobi or nicknamed the professor for no reason, and worry gnawed at his heart as he wondered what, exactly, Naruto would become now.

xxxx

The moment Naruto had fallen asleep after waking up on the first day and revealing his memory impairment, Sarutobi had sent out a hawk to Jiraiya, Naruto's grandfather, and technically his guardian, though the actual guarding part of the title was superficial at best. Having arrived in the village yesterday, Jiraiya watched as his favourite student's son wondered around Konoha as if he had never seen it before, and then as Naruto was dropped at the location where the Uchiha's fan girls screaming blue murder, making him wince even at the distance he was at.

Shikamaru woke at a particularly loud scream from the girls to find Naruto standing next to him with a confused look on his face. "Hey Naruto," Shikamaru said, alerting Naruto and Choji to one of his rare waking moments. Naruto turned to him with that confused look still on his face and said blankly, "Who are you?"

"Not another one of your pranks Naruto, they're too troublesome," Shikamaru said, with an edge in his voice that betrayed his nervousness, as Naruto had never acted this calm before, and his pranks never broached something potentially damaging to his friends. The blank look on his face was especially convincing.

"Sorry, I got out of the hospital today and got told to meet my friends by the hokage, he brought me here and pointed to you guys saying he had paperwork to do, and then left. Apparently I have something called amnesia, so sorry if you thought I was pulling a prank, I didn't know I did those. So what's your name?" Shikamaru was mortified at how easily Naruto seemed to be handling such a serious subject, and quickly used his shadow possession to stop Sakura and Ino fighting. Contrary to everyone's belief, he knew when he needed to be something other than lazy, (despite how troublesome those times are) and this was definitely one of them.

Sakura noticed Naruto standing next to Shikamaru, and decisively ignored him as she and Ino went over to the boys. Her jaw dropped however, when he rather painfully sputtered out "Who are you?"

"Oh that is it Naruto you idiot I've had enough of your pranks, now GO AWAY!" she yelled. When he looked at her confused instead asking her out on a date, her inner voice suddenly shut up and she started to wonder if something was actually wrong with the dead last. Her instincts did not care about that though, as her fist was already in its automatic swing for his head. However, instead of connecting with his face, he blocked her with his forearm, then delivered a punch to her solar plexus, and before anyone could do anything, was sending an earth-shattering kick to her face, intent on doing serious damage. Sakura looked up to see a look that froze her blood in his eyes, red irises with slit pupils, and caused every instinct and nerve to scream RUN! Naruto's leg continued towards her face.

Naruto was surprised as his leg was stopped suddenly, gripped by a powerful hand connected to a very large man with long white hair, and a horned hitai-ate with the kanji for oil on it. The man looked at Naruto's eyes, then dropped his leg and knocked out the others with a pressure point hold before grabbing the boy and using a shunshin to escape to a deserted training field.

Naruto was trying his utmost to deal a death blow to Jiraiya, but found himself unable to move as a seal was slapped on his back. The man walked in front of him and introduced himself. He struck a pose with one hand in the air and announced, "Behold and feast your eyes on the scourge of fire country's taverns and brothels, the self proclaimed super pervert and toad sage of Mount Myoboku, the great, charming and devilishly handsome, Jiraiya!" Naruto sweatdropped at the man's antics, and developed another one as Jiraiya's demeanour suddenly became very serious.

Jiraiya immediately knew things were worse than they seemed, as that was the first time he had ever been able to introduce himself without being interrupted since he, Orochimaru and Tsunade almost lost their lives to Hanzo the salamander. Much to Naruto's worry, Jiraiya proceeded to lift up his shirt and place his hand on his stomach. "WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING, I O**UGHT TO DESTROY YOU AND EVERYTHING YOU HOLD DEAR, AND T**HEN I WILL PLAY A PRANK ON YOU SO HORRIBLE, YOU WON'T SLEEP FOR A WEEK!" Ignoring his outburst, during which Naruto failed to notice the momentary change in his voice and the change of colour of his eyes, but Jiraiya didn't, he proceeded to pump chakra into Minato's seal. The seal did not appear.

xxxx

In the T&I department, Inoichi Yamanaka was staring horrified at the gates that should have held the nine tails captive. They were open. But that wasn't the most horrifying part. The worst part was the half nine-tailed fox half Naruto Uzumaki sleeping in the shadow of the gates. It looked like Naruto, and was sleeping propped up against one of the gates, its feet and backside soaking in the filthy sewer water. Black rimmed eyelids hid blood red eyes with slit pupils, and black lined lips covered its fangs. Claws adorned the ends of its finger and toes. It wore Naruto's trousers but no top, and the hair on his arms, as well as on his head, which flowed down his back and across his shoulders while keeping its spikiness, was a dark orange/red colour, reminiscent of the fox's fur. And nine tails could be seen curling around the sleeping body of what was in front of the T&I's head of interrogation.

Inoichi suddenly opened his eyes and fell away from Naruto with terror adorning his features, however, he quickly gathered himself, he wasn't a jounin for nothing, and gave his report to Jiraiya of what he found in Naruto's mindscape. "It would appear that whatever technique was used in the attack has completely opened the seal." Jiraiya gasped at the information, never thinking for a moment that anyone had a technique strong enough to obliterate the yondaime's seal. He stopped himself running to the hokage as the look on Inoichi's face said that he wasn't finished. "It also appears that the secondary blow to the head prevented the nine tails from escaping... by merging the chakra and consciousness of both Naruto and the fox!"

xxxx

Shikamaru opened his eyes to find himself in Choji's house, and looked to see the others were waking up as well. As realisation as to what happened came to them, Sakura started lightly sobbing, both in fear of the look that had been on Naruto's face and the fact that he had tried to hurt her, not just hit her.

Shikamaru shuddered as he also thought about Naruto, and found something oddly disturbing about what he remembered. He singled out the fact that Naruto had been without his signature smile. Obviously, he had seen Naruto when he wasn't smiling, but he'd never seen him at a time when the smile was completely absent instead of just hidden.

Shikamaru gave the other three a look that told them what they needed to know, and they rushed towards the hokage's tower, ignoring Choza's cries telling them not to pick fights with sannin. As they rushed through the village, the others in their class wondered what was going on, and the group grew in number, managing to gain Kiba, Shino and Hinata, and for some reason Neji, Lee, Tenten and surprisingly Sasuke. They rushed through the tower, ignoring the secretary to find Jiraiya of the sannin in the hokage's office, along with the wizened old man himself, who simply said, "You guys may want to sit down."

xxxx

"You really think they're ready to know?" Jiraiya asked, as he silently contemplated the consequences. "This affects everyone in the village and these are his friends and classmates, I believe that they are both deserving and ready," Sarutobi said, but before he could address the children, Shikamaru spoke up, much to the surprise of everyone else. "Naruto has the nine-tailed fox sealed inside him, doesn't he?"

The others gasped and turned to the hokage, who just looked at them and gave a slight nod. "And that has something to do with why Naruto has lost his memory and viciously attacked Sakura earlier?" Sarutobi turned to Jiraiya, who nodded and launched into his explanation, saving what he had learned from Inoichi until last.

"As you all now know, Naruto did have the nine-tailed fox demon that attacked the village sealed into him by the yondaime hokage, who was also Naruto's father," Jiraiya said. He didn't get the reaction he expected though, as only a few people seemed surprised, those being Sakura, Sasuke, and team Gai. So he continued.

"Three weeks ago, the day before the team selections, a mob of civilians and two ANBU broke into Naruto's home and attempted to beat him to death. From what we could tell at the hospital, he received some kind of chakra infused blow to the seal on his stomach, and then immediately after a second one to the head. I disabled Naruto today when he tried to attack Sakura, and took him to the T&I department for Ino's father to delve into his mind and find out what happened..."

"Well, what happened then?" Sakura whispered fearfully.

"The seal was broken by the blow and the nine tails was released," Jiraiya said bleakly, but continued quickly lest the panic he saw on everyone's faces escalate. "However, the fox demon did not escape, instead, something much worse happened. Naruto's chakra and consciousness has fused with that of the nine tails, giving Naruto near unlimited chakra and a new personality. Due to the fact that he hasn't yet attempted to kill anyone or destroy the village, it is pretty safe to assume that the reason this has not happened is because the fox demon's memory was also wiped by the attack."

xxxx

A/N: DUN DUN DUUUUUN. So what does this mean for Naruto, and how will the sandaime hokage react to the information? The next chapter awaits...


	3. Chapter 3

Instinctual Release

Chapter 3

Thor94: You're right, there is definitely going to be that element with Naruto now that he and the nine tails have 'merged,' but his overall personality is going to be more Naruto than the fox, whereas his fighting instincts and prowess are going to come from the fox, along with some personality quirks, meaning there will be some parts of Naruto that are completely different.

And by the way this Kakashi is NOT canon Kakashi, before anyone gets upset.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. Unfortunately.

xxxx

Kakashi Hatake did not like children. Especially children who have just become genin. Especially two children in particular that have just become genin, and five minutes ago he found out that the only two children in the village that he actively avoided had just been placed on his genin team. And he still had yet to find another copy of the Icha Icha series that Kurenai had decided to 'confiscate'. His day was not going well.

xxxx

Naruto was angry. He had been locked in a padded room covered in chakra seals, then tied up till he was immobile, then _he _was painted in chakra seals, and he had been mercilessly questioned about his loyalty to the village for almost 24 hours. After such an interrogation, he decided on indulging himself on the one thing he thought would make him feel better. He didn't know why the thought of ramen made him feel so good, but he headed to Ichiraku's Ramen to quench his curiosity, a place that the hokage had recommended to him, telling him that it was his favourite restaurant before he lost his memory.

When he sat down at the bar, a bright and cheerful voice made its way to his ears, "Hey Naruto, we haven't seen you in weeks, how's it going?" He looked over to find a girl of around 18 years of age standing in front of who must have been her grandfather, with a nametag that read 'Ayame'. He responded with a vague, "Not much," making it clear by his tone that he didn't want to talk anymore. The old man brought over a bowl of miso pork ramen and said "Here you go Naruto, you look a little down, so this one's on the house," which pleased Naruto greatly, seeing as he had forgotten that he would have to pay for food.

He picked up some ramen in his chopsticks, and bit into it. He immediately felt a searing pain in his head; fond memories of the old man and the girl flashed through his head, but at the same time he could remember smelling ramen coming from some small village as he decimated it with his claws and teeth.

The pain and memories disappeared as quickly as they had come, and it looked like no one had noticed his momentary 'episode'. He quickly finished off the ramen as he was still hungry, then left hurriedly without saying goodbye to Ayame, not noticing that the edge of the bowl where had been holding it was now a steaming puddle.

Naruto was glad that while he had lost his memory, he apparently knew the village so well that he could get around fine if he didn't think about where he was going. So it was with some trepidation and no small amount of excitement that he made his way to the bridge where he had been told he would be meeting the rest of his team, thoughts of the odd memories plaguing his mind.

xxxx

Sarutobi sat in the council room quietly humming to himself as most of the people in the room were in uproar over what they had just been told. The only people apart from him that weren't losing their heads were Jiraiya, Shikaku Nara, Choza Akimichi, Inoichi Yamanaka and Danzo.

"Everyone settle down. Now tell me what it is about my actions that have you all screeching like banshees." After a moment, one of the civilian members of the council stood up and addressed the hokage. "We are questioning your decision to let that thing wander the streets of our beloved village, to trample over the yondaime's legacy, and worst of all place it on a team with _Sasuke Uchiha_."

Before either Sarutobi or Jiraiya could say anything however, the jounin commander spoke up. "This 'thing' that you speak of happens to be a child, a child that has been one of my son's best friends for years and is like a son to me," Shikaku said, eyeing the other council members with a level of emotion that was rarely seen in a Nara.

"The yondaime's legacy was the protection of the village and Naruto; the hero of Konoha, and hopefully his being put on the same team as the last Uchiha means that Sasuke will finally get the beating he's had coming for a while now. And if not then at least Naruto will be such a pain in the arse for him he'll replace the stick that seems permanently wedged up there."

This caused quite a reaction among the council members, with the few who were on Naruto's side snickering to themselves, while the others either remained complacent, (Danzo) or gave cries of horror at the thought of the Uchiha being below the demon in any way, shape or form. The civilians quickly quietened down as an ANBU rushed through the room at the behest of the hokage upon hearing the word demon. Looking to the point where he had flashed by, they saw nothing of the man who had originally spoken up save a small puddle of blood.

"There will be no more discussion on the topic. This meeting is adjourned," and with that Sarutobi left to continue to tackle his greatest enemy to date, the dreaded mountain of paperwork, an immortal demon in its own right Sarutobi thought.

xxxx

Naruto eyed his two genin teammates and their jounin instructor, all of which seemed to be staring at him with thinly veiled contempt. Seeing as he didn't have a clue who they were, he eyed the instructor angrily after making them wait some two and a half hours for him to show up.

"Right then, let's get this over with," he said, seeming to completely relax, though Naruto could see the way his muscles tensed whenever he or the dark-haired emo kid looked at him. "First off, introductions. My name is Kakashi Hatake; I like a few things and dislike some others. There are certainly a few things, and people, that I dislike. My hobbies are none of your business, and neither is my ambition."

Sakura was rather taken aback by the lack of information, and even she noticed the way he looked at Naruto and Sasuke when mentioning his dislikes, though it was subtle. When neither of the boys spoke up next, she said her piece.

"My name is Sakura Haruno. The things I... I mean the person I like is..." she said, eyeing Sasuke dreamily. "The person I dislike is..." At this she levelled a death glare at Naruto, before dropping her gaze remembering how scary he had been when he had attacked her. Naruto looked on indifferently. "My hobbies..." again she glanced at Sasuke. The emotional one-eighty caused the rest of the group to sweatdrop.

"Right then blondy, you're next," Kakashi said, knowing very well that without his memory the boy would be hard-pressed to answer, and had to resist the urge to chuckle as Naruto struggled.

"Well... you see... there was this thing... and it kinda sorta led to me not remembering much," Naruto said, sheepishly rubbing the back of his head with a big stupid grin on his face. "So my name is Naruto Uzumaki. So far I like the Nara clan and dislike just about everyone else I've met so far as they always shout at me, or glare at me, or try and hit me, or throw things at me. Oh and attack me in a mob causing me to lose my memory."

Everyone involuntary flinched at that last remark, because while they disliked him, they would not wish amnesia on anyone. Not that Kakashi wished the boy had died instead of his father or anything. "My ambition is to find **and kill the two people who are responsible for my current condition, slowly, painfully, and without remorse."** Everyone was taken aback as his voice suddenly changed, and Kakashi felt the presence of Naruto's chakra, almost as unbearable as the pure demonic chakra that had leaked off the nine-tails as it destroyed the village. He also felt a small sudden rise in the air temperature, noticing that the other two genin were beginning to sweat.

Sasuke's attitude toward the blonde reversed instantly. In the academy Naruto had been a fool, a prankster, dead last, and the one who he had accidentally shared his first kiss with. Here he was like Sasuke, angry, interested only in getting revenge on the two people that turned his life into a nightmare. This was a Naruto that could grow strong with him, who could share in his pain. This was a Naruto that was connected to and shaped by a demon, just like him.

"My name is Sasuke Uchiha. I did not like anything until a moment ago when I decided that I liked the new Naruto. I dislike those without power or at least the desire for power. My hobby is training and my ambition is to kill a certain man." Naturally, Kakashi decided that he disliked the two boys in front of him even more, as they were focused on revenge, something that he found pointless and unhealthy. Naruto meanwhile, felt a small pang of recognition in the emo boy, and decided that maybe this team wouldn't be so annoying after all.

"Meet me at training ground seven at seven am tomorrow for your survival test. Don't eat breakfast or you are going to puke. That I promise you."

With that, the jounin shunshined out of the area, leaving the three there to reflect on what they had just been told. Sasuke gave one of his customary 'hn's and left for the Uchiha compound, while Sakura went to meet up with Ino and Hinata. Naruto waited until they were out of sight, then copied Kakashi, having been able to sense his 'sensei's' movement and feel the way he manipulated his chakra. A small blast of hot purple air dissipated in the spot Naruto had just been standing as he performed his own shunshin back to his apartment.

xxxx

After three hours of waiting for the jounin to show up, their stomachs rumbling, all three of the genin were on edge. Naruto was idly flicking the ground, making the impact a little louder every time. Sakura was about to shout at him for being annoying, but held her tongue as Kakashi appeared behind her. Much to her surprise, he softly whispered in her ear so the other two wouldn't hear. "Just ignore him and Sasuke too. They aren't worth the ground that they stand on, either of them." Then he turned to address the rest of the team.

Naruto heard exactly what Kakashi said, the man not knowing about his enhanced hearing. He also heard the whispering of the man called Jiraiya that had been stalking him lately, and he could smell the various other jounin that were watching. He gave a small smile as he smelled Shikaku, the only man that had been kind to him beyond being polite since he lost his memory, visiting him almost every day while he was in the hospital, and sneaking him sweets that he constantly kept on his person should he have a run in with Choza's son. He also surprisingly indulged Naruto in the information that his attackers were ANBU impersonators, and helped him come up with increasingly frightful plans for revenge. A certain purple haired jounin had spent a whole week sneezing like crazy, though the doctors could find nothing wrong with her.

"This timer is set for noon. There are two bells here. Get the bells off of me before noon or you will all be sent back to the academy. Only two of you can graduate. If you do not come at me with the intent to kill me you will not get the bells. Begin." With that both Sakura and Sasuke ran off into the bushes, probably to try to set up traps. The man was a jounin; no traps he or the others could set would be enough to get the man.

Naruto stood where he was, slowly allowing his chakra to saturate his body even more than normal, and smirked as he saw a small bead of sweat roll down Kakashi's temple. The moment the bead touched the ground, he launched towards the jounin. Everyone was surprised at the speed at which Naruto attacked the jounin, a speed which was itself probably at jounin level. Unfortunately for Kakashi, Naruto took the 'intend to kill' command seriously.

Kakashi had been expecting Naruto to be good. He was an Uzumaki, he was Minato's son and his chakra and mind had merged with the nine tails. However, he was unable to anticipate just how strong this made the genin.

Naruto's first punch collided with Kakashi's skull, surprising the man as he had not made a grab for the bells. What surprised him, and everyone else, more was that Naruto's punch had burnt a fist sized hole into the mask Kakashi always wore. They could see a small haze around him, like a heat wave, with a purple tinge to it. Sakura looked on in amazement as the dead last managed to land a punch on a _jounin_. Sasuke looked on in sadistic glee as Naruto proved himself to share in a similar bloodlust to his own. This was going to be a fun match to watch. He knew the purpose was teamwork, it was painfully obvious to the young genius, but for now he would just sit back and observe.

Kakashi had surprisingly not been able to read his book while fighting the genin, as he knew that a single punch from the blonde could be devastating with whatever jutsu he seemed to be using. That first punch had hurt quite a lot, more than a regular genin, even more than a regular jounin should be able to hurt him with such an attack, and he could feel the burn on his face. So he dodged everything the blonde threw at him. That was until a blow to the stomach that he dodged still seemed to hit him, leaving a burning fist imprint in his jacket, though not quite burning through like the actual physical attack had with the first punch.

Jiraiya just looked on in amazement as whatever Naruto was doing was allowing him to imitate frog kata, the powerful fighting style of the toad sages. He would be keeping a close eye on the boy, that is, while he wasn't conducting some very important _research._

Naruto tried a feint that Kakashi used to get behind the devil-child. Naruto swung around with a grunt of exertion, and then released a triumphant shout as he managed to land a punch that would at least break a few ribs for a jounin, and was deadly to anyone under that level. His face dropped however, when the man disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

With a glint of pure evil in his eye, Kakashi ran towards the blonde at full speed, and shouted "Forbidden jutsu: one thousand years of death!" His hands clenched in a facsimile of the tiger seal, he smiled as the extended fingers hit Naruto squarely in the backside, sending him screaming thirty feet into the air, before he dropped like a stone and disappeared in the forested area of the training field.

Disgusted at their sensei's crude jutsu, Sasuke grabbed Sakura and led her towards where Naruto landed, noticing that Kakashi had remained out in the open. He found Naruto face down in the ground, the purple haze gone, although Sasuke could still feel the presence of Naruto's chakra. Unlike most other genin his sensory skills were in fact fairly superior. He pulled Naruto out of the ground, and explained his plan to the other two. Naruto looked at him with an evil grin on his face, while Sakura looked apprehensive and appalled that her precious Sasuke could suggest something that would be considered evil to do to an enemy shinobi, let alone their _sensei._

xxxx

The other jounin and single sannin who were observing suddenly tensed as they felt two very sadistic killer intents that genin should not have been capable of coming from the direction that Naruto had landed. Despite the fact that they _knew _that no genin could hold a candle to Kakashi, even when he was holding back, they prepared to intervene anyway, instinct forcing them be prepared.

They knew their instincts were right when Sakura's scream was heard from within the forest, and echoes of laughter made their way towards them, laced with a thirst for blood.


	4. Chapter 4

Instinctual Release

Chapter 4

A/N: Thanks for all of the positive feedback, this is my first fanfic and honestly I'm surprised at how many people have liked it, so thanks again, you shall be rewarded with more chapters!

Also, I know in Shippuden Sakura is a bit of a badarse, but in the original she is a bit of a wet leaf. However, the Sakura that I create is going to be tough, pretty much able to keep up with Naruto and Sasuke. Also, Naruto's and Sasuke's summons are going to be different as well. And all of their summons are going to be overpowered and _definitely _non-canon.

Also, this is not a Sakura/Kakashi pairing, at the moment I don't plan on having any romance in the story. Sorry.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. Every time I write this a little part of me dies .

xxxx

Kakashi rushed towards where Sakura's scream originated from, the other jounin hot on his heels, although they still kept out of sight. When he finally stumbled upon her in a clearing, it was with a look of horror that was hidden by his mask.

Sakura was lying face down on the ground with Sasuke and Naruto standing behind her with bloodied kunai in their hands. Kakashi looked down to see that Sakura's calves had been slashed from behind, and it wasn't hard to see who had done it. Kakashi decided that he was going to make the two boys pay, they had completely gone against what he taught; never leave a comrade behind. And yet these two had done much worse. They had intentionally injured their own teammate. "This cannot go unpunished," Kakashi said, as he lifted up his headband to reveal his sharingan eye, in case Naruto activated that odd hazy purple cloak.

xxxx

Naruto and Sasuke glanced at each other as Kakashi got out his sharingan. Sakura had decided that she would go and tell Kakashi what the two had planned for him, so they had to stop her. It didn't occur to them they could do so without slashing her calves. They had been kind to not permanently disable her by cutting through the tendons in her ankle.

When Sasuke had told Naruto his plan, he had expected him to be reluctant. What he hadn't expected was for the blonde to take it a step further. He also hadn't expected him to share in the sentiment that attacking Sakura was only to keep her from Kakashi. With these thoughts in mind, he sprinted towards Kakashi and started to circle around the jounin, intent on bringing all of the attention on to himself.

Meanwhile, Naruto formed twenty shadow clones and sent them to distract Kakashi further, while he too circled around. When he had Kakashi's back facing him, he slipped a kunai into each hand and another into his sleeve for backup. He then rushed towards Kakashi, not aiming for the bells. All of the jounin (and one sannin) watching tensed even further, seeing the boy's jounin speed approach and preparing to intervene should the demon child do anything that could seriously injure Kakashi.

Sasuke was effectively holding Kakashi's attention, due to Naruto's clones and just about every shuriken, kunai and fire jutsu he had being thrown at their jounin sensei. He spared a quick glance at Naruto as he rushed at Kakashi from behind. Unfortunately, Kakashi caught where his eyes glanced with his sharingan, and moved to intercept or dodge the attack.

Naruto saw Kakashi push back Sasuke and the onslaught of clones and start to turn towards him. He pushed for one final burst of speed and launched himself at the sharingan user, his kunai aiming to take off Kakashi's head. Kakashi turned in time with a kunai in his hand, and used it to parry both of Naruto's thanks to the speed granted him by the sharingan. Without it, he would have been dead.

However, even the sharingan can't see through objects, and he didn't react in time to the third kunai that Naruto had been hiding up his sleeve. Thrown off balance Naruto couldn't reach Kakashi's neck, so he aimed for what he could reach. Kakashi's eyes widened as the kunai bit into his shoulder and sliced through, where it deflected off his collar bone and ended stabbing him in the bicep.

Sasuke dashed forwards the moment he saw Kakashi turning, hooking the bells in his fingers and detaching them from the jounin's belt, darting back again as Kakashi fell to his knees. He was utterly shocked that two genin had been able to wound him and get the bells, as he stared at the kunai embedded in his arm. The wound was more of a glancing blow than a full on stab wound, so it was nothing he couldn't recover from given a few days.

Naruto saw the two kunai that had been parried lying on the ground at his feet, and picked them up. He stared Kakashi in the eyes as he brought them up in a cross pattern, intent on taking off the jounin's head like the plan had been. He knew Sasuke only meant to _try_ and cut off his head, to distract him long enough to grab the bells, and even he was slightly disturbed by Naruto's actions.

The surrounding jounin, seeing that Kakashi was too shocked to protect himself, rushed forward to intercept Naruto, succeeding in the nick of time. They nearly retreated however when Naruto turned to face them, and they saw that his eyes were a dark purple. No pupil, no whites, no irises, just a blank purple canvas that froze their very souls. If they weren't all hardened by war, they may very well have fainted at the sight. As it was, a couple only wet themselves.

xxxx

Despite Kakashi's and Sakura's insistence that they would never work with Naruto and Sasuke again as they both recovered in the hospital, Sarutobi had no choice but to force the team together, seeing as they had technically succeeded in using teamwork to get the bells. During the week that the two of them spent together in the hospital, Sakura and Kakashi became firm friends, as Kakashi promised to protect her from her teammates, and Sakura promised to get strong enough to defend herself.

With Kakashi and Sakura in the hospital, Naruto and Sasuke had spent a lot of time together. _A lot _of time. They very quickly and very worryingly became friends, as Naruto's two personality halves merged even further, as evidenced by his strong friendship with a psychopath. Not that that stopped the fan girls from vilifying Naruto for daring to befriend their precious Sasuke.

So it was that Sasuke pointed out something about his friend that had bothered him for a couple of days now. "Naruto, why do you dye your hair blonde?" He asked, looking at the roots of Naruto's unruly hair that was a dark orange/red colour.

"What are you talking about? I am blonde, I don't dye my hair. And that is a pretty girly thing to say Sasuke, I mean half the village already thinks you're gay, if this gets out there will be no end to the shit storm that the fan girls will hit you with," Naruto replied, at first startling the dark haired Uchiha, then horrifying him with the image of thousands of angry fan girls screaming at him.

"No Naruto forget that, the roots of your hair are red. Look," Sasuke said, pulling a mirror out of... somewhere.

"Okay before your sexuality is questioned even further at the fact that you carry around a mirror, there's no way my hair is red because I'm a natural blo... OH MY GOD MY HAIR IS CHANGING COLOUR WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING TO ME!" Sasuke was blown back so forcefully that the mirror didn't even have time to fall before Naruto grabbed it to look at himself more closely.

It was at that unfortunate moment that Sakura and Kakashi showed up, unable to deny the fact that the blonde/redhead seemed back to his normal self, despite said normal being classified as 'extremely loud and irritating'.

"Naruto, Sasuke, myself and Sakura have been told that despite your actions and your blatant disregards for your teammate's life in a _training exercise_," Kakashi said, seeming to struggle with the concept of Naruto being as psychotic as Sasuke, "we are now officially a team and as such we are to make our way to the hokage tower to receive our first mission."

"However, I want to make one thing clear. You will never, _ever,_ again harm one of your teammates while I am in charge, or both of your shinobi statuses will be rescinded. Also, I want you to understand that while we are a team, I am not your friend. I will not babysit you, or chat with you, or go out of my way to teach you something that I don't have to. Do I make myself clear?" When both boys nodded, he let out a small breath, thankful that neither of them had decided to act up.

In truth, both Naruto and Sasuke merely disliked the idea of not being shinobi anymore. They couldn't care less about the whole 'friends' part of the speech, the only friends they had were each other.

xxxx

Over the next two weeks, four things of note happened with team seven and Konoha. The first thing was Naruto's hair changed from blonde to red completely, despite his best efforts to try and dye his hair back to blonde. The second thing was that Kakashi stepped up Sakura's training, secretly teaching her the tree climbing exercise and the water walking exercise, and then finding out her elemental affinity was water as she mastered the first two quickly due to her prodigal chakra control.

The third thing was that team seven surprisingly made it to the number one team, as with Naruto and Sasuke's teamwork, plus the fact that both of them were well above genin level in all actuality, the dreaded 'Tora Mission' was finally completed after having been failed by every other team so far.

The fourth event however, nearly threw Konoha into chaos. Jiraiya had disappeared the day after the bell test, saying he got a tip from one of his spies. Then, one week later, he marched through the gates of the village hidden in the leaves with one Orochimaru in tow. Naturally everyone panicked, and when Jiraiya walked into the hokage's office with the traitor, suffice to say that Sarutobi never thought he'd come that close to heart attack again.

xxxx

"I finally did it sensei. I finally brought him back," Jiraiya said proudly, while Orochimaru sneered in contempt, both of the two men in the room with him and the fact that he had been captured. Despite his sneer, he was actually extremely sad inside, now that he would never gain the immortality that he had been so close to achieving. He listened as Jiraiya explained how he had caught him, depression engulfing him.

"When I got word from my spy in Oto, I immediately rushed to where my informant was for details on the snake's location, knowing that he couldn't put that in a letter. On the way, there was a village I recognised that was quite famous for its hot springs, so naturally, I wanted to have a look. I almost did too, but when I went into the village, it was abandoned."

"I realised that the reason I recognised it was that when you summoned me after Naruto's memory loss, I found a bandit raid going on, but left it alone. Many of the people weren't spared, and they left." Jiraiya stopped for a moment to mourn the loss of such an excellent avenue for research.

"I ran into the lair on the way, and immediately found Orochimaru here about to engulf some poor fool in a weird ritual, which I have since learned is his very own immortality jutsu. Had I not let that town be overrun and stayed there for a visit, I would have been unable to perform a seal ritual that prevents the receiver from moulding chakra, effectively making my captive here a civilian."

Jiraiya took a breath and looked at his sensei, begging the god of shinobi to be lenient with the man he still saw as his best friend, even after so many years. "Fine. Take him down to T&I to see what Ibiki can get out of him. Then I will place him under house arrest in an apartment with a 24 hour ANBU watch for _protection,_" Sarutobi said, bringing a look of happiness on Jiraiya's face. Orochimaru just wept inside at the loss of his jutsu, knowing that now he would never be immortal, own a sharingan, or learn every jutsu in the world. A true tragedy.

xxxx

Naruto stared at the hokage vehemently, as he had just very loudly announced that they were ready for a higher level mission. "Naruto, despite the fact that your team completed the 'Tora mission' you are still dysfunctional and act more in pairs than a four man team, therefore, you are unfit to go on a higher level mission," the hokage said staring the new redhead down. He was surprised when Kakashi spoke though.

"With all due respect, while we tend to operate in pairs the team's overall function is fairly stable, so I think that a C-rank right now is actually a good idea," he said, glancing at Sakura, to see that she seemed just as determined as Naruto to go on a C-rank. He was proud of her; she had really turned around in the last few weeks, steadily building her chakra reserves and learning ninjutsu and taijutsu from him, genjutsu from Kurenai, and medical ninjutsu from hanging around at the hospital.

With a new and very powerful Naruto, a Sasuke that was easily chūnin level and a Sakura that was fast approaching Sasuke's level, plus himself, he felt that they could definitely handle a C-rank mission. "Fine then," the hokage said, relenting to Kakashi's 'wisdom', "there is a C-rank mission to the Land of Waves available, a protection detail. Send in Tazuna!" He shouted, and they waited until said man entered the room.

The first thing Naruto noticed was the smell of sake hanging heavy off of the man, and noted the way he staggered into the room. Even Kakashi was slightly put out by the state of the man. "What! This is just a bunch of kids, where are the real ninja who are supposed to protect me?"

The next thing Tazuna knew, Naruto was looking him in the eye, mere inches away, and he was pulsing his chakra, causing the man's knees to feel like they were about to buckle. As quickly as it happened, Naruto was back over next to Sasuke, who smirked at his friends antics. "Team seven and Tazuna, you will meet at the gates at 10 am tomorrow. Kakashi, if you're late then I will assign you to sixteen hours of paperwork to do for me when you get back. Is everything clear?" The hokage said, causing everyone to shudder at the idea of that much paperwork. Kakashi promptly gave a very enthusiastic nod.

xxxx

It was around three the next day, and travelling at a civilian pace was boring Naruto and Sasuke to no end. "Ahhhhh. I can't take this anymore I'm going stir crazy!" He shouted, annoying everyone even further. It was a fairly warm day, so everyone concurred, bothered by how slow they were going.

A moment later Kakashi spotted a puddle in the middle of the road, and looked up to see that all three of his genin had noticed the terrible genjutsu as well. A moment later, two men jumped out, both with large spiked gauntlets on their hands with a spiked chain hanging between them, which they quickly wrapped around Kakashi, before bisecting him in a shower of blood. However, the two chūnin were surprised when the genin seemed unfazed.

Without a word, Naruto launched himself at the one on the right with a burst of chakra, which flew off the boy as he stopped and slammed into the attacker, who was sent sprawling onto the floor. Naruto took out a kunai and threw it with a chakra enhanced arm, and the blade tore right through the gauntlet that the chūnin had put up to protect himself, ending in the ground behind him. The blade had passed right through his throat, nearly decapitating him, melting the gauntlet and cauterising the wound as it passed through them.

Sasuke was having a little more difficulty, as the other one had managed to block his initial attack, and Sasuke had to try hard to avoid the spiked gauntlet, which he could see gleamed with some sort of poison. The chain between the two suddenly dropped, and the guy's speed increased. He jabbed at Sasuke, but overbalanced, allowing Sasuke to trip him. The only problem was that he tripped the man towards Sakura and Tazuna. Or so he thought.

Not wanting their shinobi licenses removed, both Naruto and Sasuke started to move towards Sakura, but before they could do anything she pulled out a large can of water. "**Water style: Small Water Spear**" she said, and lo and behold, a small spear of water pierced the chūnin's heart. Needless to say, Naruto and Sasuke were shocked at how effortlessly Sakura had taken care of a chūnin.

"Okay sensei you can come out now," Sakura shouted at the tree line to their right, as Kakashi stepped out with a sheepish look on his face.

"Yeah sorry about that, I know that all of you are better than genin, so I wanted to see how you dealt with a couple of chūnin, and you all did very well," he said, noticing the look of glee on Naruto's face. He didn't like the boy, even less so now that he was technically half nine tails, but he couldn't deny that when he went into 'original Naruto mode,' there wasn't much about the boy himself to dislike. Kakashi just disliked his legacy.

"Ok then, Tazuna, this is not a C-rank mission. So I want an explanation as to why you lied about the rank of this mission, and then I will decide whether or not this mission is worth taking on," Kakashi said. Tazuna launched into a heartfelt explanation of the grip Gato had on his country, and how he was building a bridge to re-introduce commerce that couldn't be controlled by Gato. For some reason, Naruto was able to tell that the man was telling the truth.

"Ok then team, I vote that we continue on, however, if any of you are worried about potentially facing powerful missing-nin, please tell me now," Kakashi said, eyeing his team. Noting the look of determination on each of their faces, he nodded and turned to the road.

"Off to the Land of Waves then."


	5. Chapter 5

Instinctual Release

Chapter 5

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

xxxx

The mist was too thick for Kakashi's liking. It rolled in slowly, slow enough that it seemed natural, but team seven were on edge, and even Tazuna could feel there was something about the mist that didn't quite sit right with him. Naruto suddenly threw a kunai into the bushes, freezing a white furred rabbit in fear. Kakashi just dismissed it as Naruto being nervous... but then again, foxes did _eat_ rabbits so maybe...

"Why would that rabbit have white fur in the middle of spring?" Sasuke asked, causing Kakashi to think again. Immediately the mist thickened, putting Kakashi on even higher alert. Not as alert as Sakura though.

"Get down," she screamed to everyone, dragging Tazuna with her, while Sasuke and Naruto threw themselves flat to the ground, and Kakashi stepped away from the danger area.

A blade that was large enough to cleave clean through a bear spun through the air above their heads, embedding itself in a tree behind them. They all turned to face a man standing on the blade. He was wearing a dark grey tank top and snowy camouflage combat jeans, which were tucked into black boots. The lower half of his face was covered in bandages, and a hidden mist headband was on his head, with a wide slash through the symbol of his village, identifying him as a missing-nin.

Unfortunately, Kakashi recognised the man from the bingo book. "Zabuza Momochi, A-rank missing-nin from The Village Hidden in the Mist, also known as The Bloody Mist Village. One of the legendary Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist, and a master of the silent killing technique."

Although he would never admit it, Zabuza was a little intimidated by the fact that none of the three genin that were in front of him even flinched at his killing intent, and the two boys looked even more eager for a fight after learning who he was. They reminded him of himself a little bit with how bloodthirsty they were.

"Well well well. Who would have thought that I would have the pleasure of facing Kakashi Hatake, also known as Kakashi of the Sharingan, the man who is said to have copied a thousand ninjutsu," Zabuza drawled.

"Everyone, formation four, protect Tazuna," Kakashi called. They complied, the three of them, though powerful, were not stupid, and knew that taking on an enemy of such calibre with their current skill level and experience would have been akin to suicide.

The mist thickened even further. "Brain, heart, kidneys, lungs, liver, jugular, vital parts of the body that are easily accessible to a skilled shinobi," Zabuza's voice rang out, seemingly coming from every direction at once.

A second later he appeared directly in the middle of the group, intent on taking everyone out with one swing. Kakashi was about to spring his own shadow clone trap, but before anyone could do anything, all three of the genin thrusted their readied kunai into the missing-nin's heart, remaining on alert when the defeated jounin turned out to be a water clone.

"Well done Kakashi, it seems you have snagged yourself an appreciable group of genin if they are able to take down one of my water clones so easily. Seems I'll have to deal with you first and then take them on properly," Zabuza said, descending on the Sharingan wielder with the blade in one hand. Everyone wondered just how strong he was to be able to wield such a huge sword so effectively with a single hand.

Kakashi pulled a tanto out of his backpack, and proceeded to duel with Zabuza, though team seven's leader was slowly pushed away from the group and out over the surface of a lake. Sakura figured out Zabuza's plan, and ran forward, much to the surprise of the others. Just as Zabuza was about to spring his trap, a water clone distracting Kakashi as he performed the hand seals for the water prison jutsu Sakura again used her favourite water jutsu to devastating effect.

"**Water Style: Small Water Spear**!" She shouted, and managed to pierce Zabuza's arm as he stretched it out for the water prison. The pain interrupted his chakra control, and the jutsu failed. Kakashi dealt with the water clone, and turned to face Zabuza. They squared off as Zabuza began to do the hand seals for the water dragon jutsu, but nearly faltered as he saw Kakashi copying him at the exact same time that he was preparing the jutsu.

"**Water Style: Water Dragon Jutsu**!" They shouted simultaneously, as two monstrous dragons rose out of the water and flew towards each other. They crashed together with the force of a tsunami, but Kakashi's overpowered the missing-nin's, who was nearly killed as he was crushed against a tree by the water dragon.

Kakashi then rushed at him with a kunai, but stopped when three senbon entered the man's neck. Kakashi held the shinobi's wrist but found no pulse, when a surprisingly small Mist Hunter-nin appeared, thanking them for disabling Zabuza and disappearing with him.

Kakashi tuned to his teammates, where Sakura had gone back to guarding Tazuna. "Well team we just defeated an A-rank missing-nin while protecting his target. Celebratory meal at the BBQ Shack on me when we get back!" Kakashi said, then fainted from chakra exhaustion.

xxxx

Kakashi had woken up the next day after being treated by Sakura at Tazuna's house, her time spent at the hospital paying off. So it was that they were currently outside in the woods, while Kakashi explained the tree climbing exercise to them.

"You have to apply a layer of chakra to the bottom of your feet, the hardest place to expel chakra from. You must maintain a steady level of chakra, too much and you will imprint the tree and trip, too little and you will fall. I will now demonstrate." With that Kakashi proceeded to walk up the tree like it was the most natural thing in the world, even with his crutches.

"Use a kunai to mark how high you get. You may want to start with a run up," Kakashi said, seeing that Naruto and Sasuke were raring to go.

"Done it," Sakura called, as she hung upside down at the top of her tree, holding on with nothing but the soles of her feet.

"Well done Sakura, come to the bridge with me to guard Tazuna and I will teach you something else. Naruto, Sasuke, once you do this just spar or practise water walking, there isn't much I can teach you two at the moment anyway," Kakashi called, disheartening the two as they thought they were going to learn some cool new jutsu. Unfortunately, Naruto could tell that Kakashi was lying, and secretly vowed to get back at him one day.

Despite that, both Naruto and Sasuke were eager to out-compete each other, and both ran towards the trees that they were assigned to, kunai in hand. Sasuke made a good start, getting five steps up before he had to slash the tree due to not layering enough chakra on his feet. Naruto on the other hand, had a lot more trouble.

He ran at the tree as fast as he could, determined to beat his best friend, and pumped chakra into his feet. The only problem was that Naruto's chakra was now practically limitless, and he accidently used around two thousand times the required chakra. He snapped the tree in half in a shower of splinters on his first attempt, and had to move to another tree.

"Whoops, guess I put a little too much into that one," he said with a big smile on his face while sheepishly rubbing the back of his head. Sasuke gaped at what Naruto thought was a little too much chakra, seeing as it was probably about equal to Sasuke's total reserves. Sometimes he forgot that while Naruto really _was _the nine tails now, he was also the dobe. He briefly wondered whether Naruto knew that he was half human and half tailed beast.

They practised well into the evening, and didn't even stop for dinner, preferring to continue on through the night, constantly pushing each other to greater and greater heights (literally), until they both mastered it. They went back to Tazuna's house around three in the morning, and crashed out in their respective rooms right through until lunch.

xxxx

While defending Tazuna on the bridge and training Sakura, Kakashi contemplated whether to tell his team that he shouldn't have let that hunter-nin take Zabuza, as it was probably an accomplice considering he had actually saved Zabuza from Kakashi, and then not sliced him and diced him on the spot. He thought he should, as it would give them greater incentive to practice.

"Ok Sakura, I'm going to teach you a new water jutsu that is a bit more powerful and an earth style jutsu. I now believe that that hunter-nin was in fact an accomplice of Zabuza's and merely put him in a near death state to save him. As far as I can figure, it should take about two weeks for him to recover, so you need to step up the training," Kakashi lectured.

"I know, I figured that out yesterday while healing you, don't worry I told the boys," Sakura retorted, surprising Kakashi, although he really shouldn't have been surprised, having experienced her superior intellect for her age first hand. She would never be as clever as a Nara, but that didn't detract from how smart she was, especially compared to the two others on their team.

"Good, I'm glad at least one of my students noticed. Now then the water jutsu I'm going to teach you is an upgraded version of your small water spear. It's called fluid water spear, and you can control it for as long as you have chakra, making it more taxing but also more versatile, and with the right application, it can be a very powerful asset," Kakashi said, getting a very eager Sakura's eyes to light up.

"Here, I'll demonstrate. **Water style: Fluid Water Spear**," he called out, and immediately a large spear of water rose out of the ocean and started to flow around jounin, following his hand movements. He released the jutsu after a moment, knowing that Sakura will have already memorised the hand seals necessary.

"The earth technique that I'm going to show you is defensive, and it's called Earth Wall. I'm afraid Naruto and Sasuke will rush into the next fight, so you're going to have to protect Tazuna. I can't show you the jutsu here as it would break the bridge and cause more work, but when you are fighting to save their bridge and their lives, I don't think that he will mind too much," he said, giving his favourite student a rare eye smile. He then proceeded to show her the hand seals for the technique, and kept an eye on her as she practised the Fluid Water Spear, making sure she didn't exhaust herself.

Little did he know that at that moment three of the greatest legends that would ever exist were in the making.

xxxx

Their two weeks were up, Kakashi was fully healed and Naruto and Sasuke had become closer than ever, both mastering tree climbing and water walking at the exact same time. Sakura had mastered the Fluid Water Spear and the Earth Wall, unbeknownst to her two teammates. Oddly, she found herself thinking about training when she got home so she could get stronger, rather than asking Sasuke out on a date. Even odder, it didn't bother her.

They were all guarding the bridge now that the two week limit was up, and sure enough a chilling mist creeped its way out over the bridge. All of the workers scarpered except Tazuna, who couldn't leave the safety of team seven.

"Well Kakashi, I've been looking forwards to our little rematch. And don't worry, this time my apprentice Haku will take care of your annoying little genin while I finish you myself," Zabuza's voice rang out.

The criminal appeared between Kakashi and the other three, and drove Kakashi away while a dozen water clones kept the genin busy. They were quickly disposed of, and then the 'hunter-nin' appeared, before removing the mask to increase visibility. He was not used to wearing it and he had been told not to underestimate these genin by Zabuza himself.

"Whoa you're a girl?" All three exclaimed at the same time.

"No, I am not a girl, though I understand that I do look somewhat effeminate," the 'boy' said flatly. Somewhat was a stretch considering both Naruto and Sasuke were currently –silently- questioning their own sexualities.

"It's a shame that the pleasantries are over, I'm afraid that I have to kill you now," Haku said, and stepped back as Naruto and Sasuke retaliated by charging at her.

He tried to use his superior speed to place senbon in the boys' necks, but quickly found that he wasn't superior enough and with two on one, was quickly losing ground. Zabuza was right, he would have to go straight into his best techniques to take the two on.

"**Ice Style: Demon Ice Mirrors**," Haku called out, as an impenetrable dome of mirrors appeared around the trio, trapping them inside, as Sakura quickly found out having tried to send a Small Water Spear through, only for it to break upon the ice. Sasuke did a set of hand seals that ended in tiger before shouting, "**Fire Style: Great Fireball Jutsu**," but even that massive superheated ball of fire didn't even dent the ice mirrors.

Haku slipped into one of the mirrors and appeared in all of them, surprising Naruto and Sasuke as they tried to figure out which one was the real Haku. They caught a glimpse of the real one as he shot out of a mirror almost faster than the eye could see, and only just managed to block the senbon thrown at them.

"Hmmm. Kudos young genin, you are indeed strong, pushing me to my fastest speed. It is a shame that you will not live after today," he said, and then used the same move, only at three times the speed, much too fast for the two genin. The best they could do was cover their vital spots as they became senbon hedgehogs.

Haku stopped for a moment and took careful aim at the red haired one's neck, before shooting out again to kill him first seeing as he was the faster of the two. Sasuke felt something different about the attack, and fearing for his only friend's life, pulled a kunai. He surprisingly found that he could _see_ Haku, realising that he had activated his Sharingan but didn't have time to ponder it seeing that Haku was going for a kill shot.

Not having time to aim and throw the kunai, he jumped in the way and felt the senbon pierce his chest, a half-inch below his heart. Haku and Naruto were stunned at the Uchiha's sacrifice, as Naruto bent down to his friend's side and felt tears well up as a scarlet stain spread across Sasuke's chest. The last thing Sasuke saw before he lost consciousness was Naruto's cerulean blue eyes looking at him as words that he couldn't hear spewed from Naruto's mouth, and the way that both his eyes slowly became a menacing purple, no whites or pupils, no emotions other than anger. Sasuke closed his eyes, not realising that the first legend had just been born.

xxxx

Kakashi was thankfully winning. He seemed to have recovered a bit more than Zabuza had, and after a few minutes Zabuza was more out of breath than Kakashi was. However, Zabuza managed a feint and pushed Kakashi away, before sprinting towards Tazuna and Sakura. He cursed as she saw him, and prepared to dodge her jutsu, assuming that she would use the same one as before. He succeeded, but didn't see the water spear come back on itself and shoot at him from behind, believing it to be the same jutsu as before. But this was the Fluid Water Spear, not the Small Water Spear.

Zabuza gasped as he felt something stab him from behind, through the middle of his chest, offset to the right slightly. He realised what had happened when he heard a splash, disbelief on his face at the fact that he had been taken down by a genin. All because he underestimated her, he slumped to the ground. Another legend was born.

Zabuza was prevented from losing consciousness as he felt a chakra that seemed almost demonic, and was so intense that he could feel a harsh wind whipping across his face. Everyone else felt it too, with Kakashi was the worst affected as that chakra reminded him of the night of the attack of the nine-tailed fox. Everyone shuddered.

xxxx

Haku gasped as he felt a chakra like no other, he was not even a sensory type and yet he could feel the sheer power of the blonde's chakra.

Naruto could feel his chakra moving through his body, and felt good now that he was able to access more of it, for whatever reason. However, he suddenly felt another sharp spike of pain in his empty head, like he had with the ramen, only this time was much worse. With the feeling of rage dual memories began to pour forth, many of suppressing said anger and running away from prank victims as payback. Despite that, he focused on the one memory that came from when he was a fox (he didn't quite understand being human and fox at the same time, but they were his memories). There were two foxes with him, a female that he remembered having a lot of feelings for, and a small kit that melted his heart. His rage was then fuelled even further at the sight of an orange swirled mask and the two foxes dead at his paws.

Then everything exploded. His chakra burst from him as he released it all at once by instinct, a wave of purple fire exploding outward from him. Sakura threw up her earth wall, unintentionally protecting Zabuza as well. Kakashi hid under ground. Haku was not so lucky.

The mirrors shattered instantly sending Haku flying against the wall of the bridge. He didn't even have time to scream as the waves of purple fire reached him, incinerating him on the spot and leaving nothing more than a smoking splash of blood sprayed across the walls of the bridge, the colour matching Naruto's wild red hair.

Deep purple eyes opened, and the last legend was born.


	6. Chapter 6

Instinctual Release

Chapter 6

A/N: Does anyone think that I should change the rating to M because of the gruesome deaths? I am planning on having some even gruesomer deaths. (Is gruesomer a word?)

Disclaimer: Naruto does not belong to me.

"Hmph. Seems these Konoha ninja did our jobs for us eh boys?" A small fat man who was wearing a jacket emblazoned with the words Gato Industries said. "Well if these useless runts can take out Zabuza and his little boy slave, then I feel even better about never planning to pay them in the first place. Now then, whoever finishes off these Konoha ninja gets a share of Zabuza's asking price, but keep the girl alive, we can add her to the collection," the man named Gato said.

Zabuza was infuriated. No, he was beyond that, there weren't even words to describe what he was feeling. The man who had employed him had cheated him, and now he insulted the memory of Haku, the only person he had ever cared about. This could not go unpunished.

"Oh so the dog isn't quite dead yet after all. Boys, if one of you kills Zabuza, I will double your pay," Gato said, leering as the army of mercenaries that appeared on the bridge with him became visible due to the mist thinning out.

Sakura was disgusted at the man; Sasuke and Naruto were unconscious after Naruto's episode that had nearly wiped them all out, Kakashi was tired and she was trying not to think about her first kill. That proved futile however, as the shock finally set in. Luckily no one noticed as she leant over the edge of the bridge and threw up, shaking profusely.

Zabuza took notice of none of this as he picked up a kunai and sprinted towards Gato, vowing that the last thing he did on this earth would be to kill the man that had sent him on a pointless mission that had resulted in his best friend's death and soon his own. Dashing through the crowd of mercenaries at an astonishing rate, fuelled by rage, he barrelled down upon his target and felt a grim satisfaction as the blade of his kunai passed through the man's neck, and watched as his body slumped to the ground while his head flew off the bridge and sunk to the watery depths below.

At least he had got revenge on the bastard, and promptly fell into unconsciousness.

"What the- what the hell do we do now. Who's going to pay us," one of the mercenaries shouted out, sparking a wave of aggravation among them, until someone said, "Hey, how about we go to the village and just take everything they have as compensation for Gato's death." The mercenaries liked that idea, and advanced toward the ninja that were in their way.

Kakashi did not like this development at all. Naruto and Sasuke were unconscious, and while that was delightful in and of itself, it meant that his two heavy hitters were out of action. Sakura was currently throwing up over the bridge, not realising that Zabuza was alive and she hadn't actually killed anyone, and he himself was so tired that even though he was a jounin level ninja, he didn't know if he could manage a couple of hundred mercenaries all on his own.

He frowned as the mercenaries suddenly stopped, not in fear, but something close to it. He saw that they were staring behind him, and looked round for himself. What he saw was both good and bad.

The good news was that Naruto was awake, and apparently fighting fit. The bad news was that his eyes were completely purple, his face was scrunched up in confusion and he was radiating a killer intent that could rival the hokage's.

"Take it out on the village will you? I don't think so." Naruto dashed towards the mercenaries, a few of which were scared by his freaky and menacing purple eyes, but most unperturbed. That is, until Naruto unconsciously activated that purple tinged haze that was so deadly. He tackled one of the mercenaries, who screamed in pain as he fell to the ground, the area where Naruto had connected having been completely burnt away, and the man died a few moments later, staring at his legless waist.

Then, all hell erupted, and an insane cackle which slowly turned into a menacing growl filtered through the blood and the screaming.

xxxx

It only took one more week for the bridge to be completed, thanks to Naruto's shadow clones. It still wasn't fast enough for Sakura and Kakashi, who were extremely paranoid of their red haired companion. They didn't want to get close to him after he had single-handedly murdered around two hundred armed men. They were terrified of him because he had been laughing the entire time.

He quickly reverted to his usual happy go lucky demeanour, and was ecstatic when Sasuke woke up. Even more so when the completed bridge was named 'The Great Naruto Bridge'. But that didn't change the fact that not a single word was exchanged between the usual pairs the entire trip back to Konoha. Which was why Kakashi was apprehensive about the situation he was currently in and had been dreading the whole way back.

"Mission report," the hokage said, looking at team seven with something akin to pity. Mostly for Naruto, as he felt like it was a failure on his part that the boy had to suffer through amnesia, and even he was slightly intimidated by the look in the boys eyes. The original Naruto was there, but underneath the surface he could see the blazing maelstrom of hate, anger and murderous glee, all of the things that were simply out in the open with the Uchiha.

Kakashi inclined his head. "After departing from Konoha we were ambushed by two high chūnin level opponents, missing-nin nicknamed 'The Demon Brothers'. I hung back watched team seven perform almost flawlessly. Then just before we reached Tazuna's home we were apprehended by A-rank missing-nin Zabuza Momochi."

Sarutobi's eyes widened slightly at that, but obviously things didn't exactly go south seeing as they were all back in Konoha and unharmed as far as he knew. He motioned to Kakashi to continue.

"These three protected Tazuna while I engaged the enemy, and thanks to a timely intervention by Sakura, was able to defeat Zabuza. However before I finished him off he was retrieved by an accomplice that we mistook for a Rain Village hunter-nin. Two weeks later we re-engaged Zabuza alongside his apprentice this time. I fought with Zabuza and was pushing him back, so he changed target s and went straight for Tazuna, who was being guarded by Sakura. She used skill and deception to quickly defeat Zabuza by mortally wounding him."

Sarutobi was again surprised that Sakura had developed so much, but he surmised that it must have been luck, as it was obvious that Kakashi severely disliked Naruto and Sasuke and played favourites. He would have to have a word with Kakashi later, but for now he motioned for him to continue again.

"Naruto was also able to defeat Haku, but fell unconscious doing so, and then Gato himself along with around two hundred mercenaries appeared. Gato announced that he planned to double-cross Zabuza all along, at which point Zabuza rushed the group and decapitated Gato, he fell unconscious and disappeared afterwards. The mercenaries were dealt with."

It was not a satisfactory report, Sarutobi knew that. "Kakashi, I want you to remain behind. You three have a few days off duty for completing an A-rank mission." Naruto beamed and Sasuke managed a small smile, due to Naruto rubbing off on him. Sakura stepped away from her teammates and left as quickly as possible, something that did not go unnoticed by the hokage. What also didn't go unnoticed was the window smashing next to his head as Naruto decided that the conventional method of leaving warranted too much effort. Ignoring that, the hokage levelled a small amount of killing intent at Kakashi, which was a lot for Kakashi, who was not quite as strong as a kage.

"So, what did you leave out of that report, and why does it seem as though you and Sakura are afraid of Naruto?" Sarutobi said, not letting up on the killing intent and smirking when beads of sweat began to form on Kakashi's forehead. However, what Kakashi said next shocked the hokage, no small feat by any stretch of the imagination.

"Due to the method that Naruto used to disable Zabuza's apprentice and then what happened afterwards, I believe that Naruto should be either put down immediately or contained in the Secure ANBU Detainment for Mental Health (SAD-MH)." The hokage was surprised to say the least. The SAD-MH was where S-rank criminals were detained if they couldn't be killed for whatever reason. It was the lowest level of the separate ANBU prison, and reserved for the best of the worst.

"Kakashi, tell me what happened on this trip. Did the other side of his 'new personality' emerge?" The hokage asked, wondering just what made Kakashi so worried. He was an ex-ANBU commander and was approaching kage level strength, there wasn't much that could rattle him.

Taking a deep breath, Kakashi told the hokage what had been giving him nightmares for a week. "I'm afraid it was the opposite sir, it appears his personality and the nine tails' personality have merged even more. Upon Sasuke receiving a near fatal wound, Naruto's chakra became unstable, and he killed Zabuza's accomplice in an explosion of purple fire that would have killed everyone had myself and Sakura not protected everyone. Sasuke was at the centre of the explosion and was unharmed."

He continued after a moment, giving the hokage time to process the information. "That however, wasn't the most worrisome part," Kakashi said, invoking a small intake of breath from the hokage. "He was knocked out after the explosion, but woke up after the two hundred mercenaries threatened the village, and threatened them. Naturally, they didn't take him seriously, but he managed to activate the purple haze that he used against me. He slaughtered every single one of the mercenaries single-handedly, and laughed throughout the massacre."

The hokage was deeply troubled by this, wondering at the state of Naruto's mind when defending comrades and innocents warranted mindless and joyous slaughter. They were at opposite ends of the moral spectrum and it was truly concerning to see both qualities displayed in a single individual. As to the explosion, he could only surmise that the seal, without having to hold back both the nine tails' mind and chakra, prevented Naruto from overloading on his 'new' chakra by merely sealing that away instead.

Such a purpose would not put any strain on the Shinigami seal, and as such it would require a larger amount of chakra to make it appear, hence why it didn't when Jiraiya investigated. "Kakashi, neither of those things are going to happen, but what _will _happen is that you are going to ensure the loyalty of both Naruto and Sasuke to this village by treating them equally, or I will break up your team and find them new jounin sensei. Do you understand?"

Kakashi couldn't keep his eyes from narrowing at the thought of losing Sakura as his student, but gave a stiff nod and shunshined from the room, leaving the hokage to try and find someone to train both Naruto and Sasuke, knowing that Kakashi would be unable to follow his order. It was going to be a long few months.

xxxx

The chūnin exams were approaching and Konoha was in a frenzy trying to prepare for the arrival of foreign shinobi. That meant recalling as many ANBU as they dared from the borders, covering up any questionable occurrences and overall improving security as best as possible. This did not worry one certain masked, silver haired, porn reading jounin one little bit as he mused over whether to let his team apply for the exams.

Naruto, even without a large base of jutsu, bloodline ability, with sloppy taijutsu and no genjutsu or kenjutsu, was probably mid-jounin level, Sasuke was easily high-chūnin, possibly low-jounin, and Sakura was comfortably at mid-chūnin level. With a sigh that even made him put his treasured book away, he shunshined to the exam office to get the papers for team seven, only because he didn't want to lose Sakura as a pupil.

xxxx

"Wow really, the chūnin exams! Great, now I can show everyone just how great I am! Sasuke better be re-" was all Kakashi heard as he left abruptly, not wanting to be around the son of his now dead sensei.

Despite that Naruto's mood had definitely been lifted. He had spent the last few hours of the afternoon after they came back from a mission trying to figure out what was going on with himself. After getting back from The Land of Waves, unknown to him, his chakra had sped up changing him, his body altering due to his new chakra. His hair had grown a lot, growing past his shoulder blades, some of it hanging down the side of his face.

He had grown a lot taller, as if was now sixteen and not twelve, his muscles had developed, his irises had changed from blue to a dark purple and his fingernails and toenails had become harder and more claw like. He had become a lot more sensitive, his sense of smell now rivalling that of an Inuzuka, his eyesight was better, like hawk's, if he was within five meters of someone he could hear their heartbeat. He could taste the air around him and could feel the slightest shift in the breeze.

All of this was temporarily forgotten however, as he hurriedly rushed to Ichiraku's Ramen, having re-developed his taste for the heavenly noodles. If being allowed to take the chūnin exam due to _Kakashi _of all people didn't count as cause for celebration, then Naruto didn't know what did.

xxxx

Sasuke stared at the piece of paper in his hands, thinking about how excited he was, guessing that at some point he was going to be able to face Naruto. His bloodlust spiked, and every animal and person near the practically abandoned Uchiha compound moved away, fearful of whatever was emitting it.

xxxx

Sakura smiled up at Kakashi from her doorway, and promptly gave the man a hug for letting her enter the chūnin exam. Kakashi was happy to return the gesture to his favourite student, as after realising just how insane Sasuke was, and then Naruto becoming a head case as well, she had needed someone strong to latch onto. He had visited her before, but she always seemed to be alone, saying that her father was at work and her mum was shopping or somesuch.

Kakashi knew differently however. He had secretly investigated her house, becoming concerned when no one other than her showed for a week. When he snuck in he found her parent's bedroom gathering dust, meagre supplies, the house was dilapidated and there was rot and damp on the inside.

After confronting her about it when he was sure they were good enough friends, she had broken down and confided in him. He comforted her, knowing that she needed someone, seeing as her parents had abandoned her one month before she even passed the academy exam.

xxxx

Naruto drifted into a restless sleep, tossing and turning as visions of memories that seemed to belong to a human and some that appeared to belong to a fox of some massive proportions invaded his mind. They stopped suddenly, and he found himself inside a cave, blue and red crystals dotting the path before him, with a giant purple crystal that filled nearly half of the vast cave in front of him. For some reason, it was behind a large gate.

The gate was slightly smaller than the crystal, but the frame had steel beams protruding from it into the walls of the cave, though these, unlike the bars of the gate, had a dense mist the same colour as the crystal spewing from between them.

He walked up to the gate, and jumped as the crystal shifted slightly, a deep rumbling sound that sounded more like a dulled roar than grinding stone. He gazed at the crystal intently, seeing two things inside the crystal. The image slowly became clearer, and he saw a giant version of what he used to look like grappling with something.

Looking even closer, he suddenly blanched, fear gripping him at the sight of the nine-tailed fox demon that attacked the village the night he was born. _It_ was what the giant him was grappling with in the crystal, even though did not appear to be moving. The disturbing thing was how the arms of his giant self in the crystal ended at the elbows. The more disturbing thing was that it was because they had melded with the demon's own 'arms'.

He finally woke up, cold sweat gripping every inch of his body. He rolled off the bed and violently threw up, clutching himself in a panic. Every ninja in the village jounin and above awoke, and felt as if the nine-tails itself was wrapping round their throat, while Naruto lay on his floor and cried.


	7. Chapter 7

Instinctual Release

Chapter 7

A/N

Thor94: Yes his memory and the nine tails' memory are both returning to him, but slowly as he is receiving two lots of memories and one is a thousand years long, it's going to take time. And don't worry, the old Naruto isn't gone, he is still able to care deeply for his friends, it's just a bit harder to make them for him now.

Skeek622: Glad you like it :D. Yeah I reckon there's definitely a resemblance between the two, but Naruto's hair is spikier, and when I get the time I'm going to upload a picture of what I envision my Naruto like, so you can see then. No it isn't SakuraKakashi pairing, they're just friends, and as of now I only have on pairing. Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura are all going to leave Konoha for a training trip, and that is when they will all get their summons, not revealing anymore than that.

To everyone, if there are any pairings that anyone would like to see in the future, feel free to review or PM me, though there will not be SakuraKakashi or NarutoSasuke, and I want to keep mostly everything straight cus I don't want to write yaoi, the one pairing I do have isn't straight, but that's why I want to keep everything else straight. So yeah, suggestions are welcome :) Now to the story.

xxxx

Sasuke was becoming slightly frantic. They still had a few hours till they had to be at the academy to hand their forms in, room 3F specifically. However, he hadn't been able to find his best friend Naruto anywhere. He wasn't at Ichiraku's Ramen, the hokage monument, his apartment, the training grounds or even the hokage tower. Normally, this wouldn't worry him, but he had been woken up last night by a crushing amount of chakra that reeked of despair and confusion, and felt a lot like Naruto's chakra.

Needless to say, Sasuke had been searching for him since dawn, and was now just wandering around Konoha in the hope that he would bump into him. He noticed the ANBU on the roofs, and the way the jounin and a few chūnin were hurrying about, all looking like they hadn't got much sleep, worry etched into their faces. There could be only one cause, and Sasuke was desperately trying to find him.

xxxx

Memories had been rushing into Naruto's head all morning, ever since he woke up. He could see Iruka's face as the man handed him his hitai-ite, then he was looking down at a blonde man and a red haired woman who were clutching a small blonde bundle, feeling fear creep into his heart. Then he was a child and a drunk man was pushing him down the street, kicking him occasionally before trundling off home.

Then more fox memories, love in his heart at the sight of a vixen, her belly swollen with a baby inside, then back to when he first met her in the foxes' summoning realm. All of these memories and more continued to flood his mind while he tried to get away from everyone, walking calmly down the streets despite his inner turmoil. He finally passed out in the one place that Sasuke hadn't yet checked, the Uchiha compound.

xxxx

Naruto woke up slowly about an hour later, something comfortable under his head, and two faces slowly came into focus as he opened his eyes. The first was his best friend, Sasuke, but he was slightly surprised to find Sakura there as well, though she seemed nervous, and continuously roamed his body with her eyes, which alternated between fear and curiosity.

He looked around and saw that he was in a room, presumably still in the Uchiha compound; it was fairly Spartan in design, a simple wooden floorboard room with wood panelling, a dark blue couch and chairs around a mahogany table in the centre of the room. His eyes fell on a glass of water on the table, which Sakura handed him almost immediately. He drank slowly, feeling a lot better already, then decided he better find out what on their minds.

"Okay Sasuke, why are you and Sakura staring at me like I'm some kind of diseased lab animal?" He asked, as their eyes widened at his voice. Seeing his confusion, Sasuke decided to speak up.

"Well, for one you look closer to sixteen than twelve, you're a few inches taller than me, your hair has grown to the middle of your back, you now have _claws_ _and fangs_, your irises are now purple with almost black, jagged, lighting like lines going from your pupil outwards and you sound like you've been a chain smoker for thirty years." Sakura nodded next to him, finally settling on just looking dumbfounded.

Naruto took in the new changes, figuring his transformation must have accelerated again last night, though at least the memories had stopped. He looked down to find that his clothes no longer fit him, but Sakura had brought some black combat jeans, black shinobi sandals and a black t-shirt with a white tribal pattern running up the sides that would fit him. At least until he found some new orange clothes. He flashed Sakura a bright smile that seemed to catch her off guard, but she offered him a small one back.

Not wanting the general populace to attack him while he walked to the academy, Naruto decided to surprise his friends. Since he noticed the transformation, he had been working on what was causing it and how to revert it. His chakra control had oddly gotten better, though he didn't yet know it was because he wasn't struggling with the fox anymore. He had his suspicions about that now though, naturally, and was going to ask the hokage about it as soon as he could.

Focusing on his chakra, he began using it to block its own effects on his body. He didn't know why it worked, or how, just that it did, so he did it. Sasuke and Sakura looked on in mild shock as Naruto shrank a few inches, his eyes returned to normal (though with purple irises), and his hair shortened, though it was still long enough to hang over his eyes. His claws and fangs receded, and a bright grin adorned his face as Sasuke and Sakura just stared at the red-head.

"Well, now that I'm not going to be attacked by everyone in a ten mile radius, why don't we hurry to the academy? We do only have about half an hour left you know," he said, still grinning madly. Sakura was amazed that Naruto could go from cold-blooded killer to a grinning moron, but figured that the older jounin could probably do it too, he just learned to do it earlier.

Nevertheless, it was a novel experience for her as the three of them dashed across the rooftops, barely keeping up with the jinchuriki, without her being scared that the two of them were to going to dispose of her first chance they got. She decided she liked it.

xxxx

Everyone stared at the odd trio as they rushed into the exam room with their papers in their hands, gasping for air, even though they still had quarter of an hour left. They were surprised however, when the three of them took one look at the door that was being blocked by a couple of other genin, took one look at each other, and then just rushed up the next flight of stairs.

A team of Rain shinobi and the others of the Konoha Nine, along with Gai's team, all took another look as well, and noticed that the number in front of the F waved slightly, looking like a two for a split second. They realised that the door was under a genjutsu and they were actually at 2F not 3F, and quietly slipped up the next flight of stairs. Even Lee was subdued at his mistake.

They made it to room 3F to find a, _peculiar,_ sight unfolding before them. A Leaf Shinobi wearing a purple vest over a white shirt, purple trousers, and large, round, rimmed glasses was currently sweating profusely as Naruto was sniffing him, nose crinkled in disgust. Sasuke was staring at the man, Sharingan active, and Sakura was just standing off to the side, facepalming. Hard.

Naruto growled slightly and rounded on the boy. No one was sure but he seemed a little taller now. "I don't know why, but you smell like snakes and dust, earthy and dry. I don't like that one bit, so I'm going to be keeping an eye on you," he said, sneering at the boy and releasing a small wave of killer intent. Well, it was small for him, but it had everyone except Sasuke, Sakura, and a Sand shinobi with red hair and black rimmed eyes on their knees, their fear was palpable and almost as thick as the killer intent.

As quickly as it came it let off, and it was at that moment that the proctor for the first stage of the chūnin exams, Ibiki Morino, entered. He was slightly shocked to find almost all of the genin picking themselves up off the floor, and immediately attributed it to one beaming red head standing in the middle of them all. When they were recovered, he spoke.

"My name is Ibiki Morino. I am not your friend, or your babysitter. I am here to make sure that as many of you fail as possible, and I am very good at my job." He paused for effect, taking in the looks of fear at his words, though there were some that seemed unaffected by his mental torture. "If you are sure you want to end up failing, realising how pathetic you are, and ultimately becoming my new chew toys for the first part of the exams, go through this door and take a number from the chūnin waiting for you, then proceed to your seat."

Grumbling, both in fear and anxiety everyone made their way in and took their seats. "Now then, for those of you who decided you don't like living, the first part of the exam is... a written test," Ibiki said menacingly.

Naruto started sweating. From what he had gathered from his friends, meaning Sasuke and the Nara clan, he was boneheaded before he lost his memory, but now he was pretty sure he would downright fail, he had some memories back, but not enough to do anything intellectual.

Ibiki continued with a smirk on his face. "Listen up brats; I'm not going to repeat myself. Now then, the test is made up of ten questions, each of which is worth one point. You start off with ten points and lose a point for every wrong answer. If any of you are caught cheating..." A brigade of chūnins suddenly shunshined into the room, all with clipboards. "Then these guys are going to write your name down, and you will be docked two points. If any one person in your team scores zero then the entire team fails. Naturally, this means that if any one person is caught cheating five times, their team is automatically excluded."

Ibiki finished and watched the multitude of reactions. Some were looking smug thinking a written test would be easy, while others were near to crapping themselves, Naruto among them. He couldn't wait to see their faces as they realised just how difficult this exam was going to be.

"Oh, and one more thing. The tenth question is a special question; it won't be given out until fifteen minutes before the end of the exam. You have an hour and a half. Begin!" And with that, papers were turned over and despair became tangible.

xxxx

Sakura was breezing through the exam, she hadn't gotten prefect test scores in the academy for nothing, but she could see that these were way too hard for any genin to answer. Ibiki hadn't said they couldn't cheat, only that they couldn't get _caught_ cheating. Most people seemed to have picked up on that, though teams were being called out repeatedly being unable to cheat well enough to avoid the eyes of the chūnins.

Sasuke was having no trouble, he had his Sharingan activated and was copying the movements of one of the chūnin plants that he had identified. Finishing with most of the test time still to go, he discretely focused on Sakura and Naruto.

Sakura was finished as well; as much as he didn't really like her, he couldn't deny that she was easily a genius, probably even had an eidetic memory. He glanced at Naruto and immediately felt team seven's chances of passing drop to zero.

Sasuke realised that without his memory, Naruto's common sense was dull at best and his insight was easily swayed by any emotional distraction, hence why he was chewing his nails down to the bed, even as they re-grew at an alarming rate as he hadn't realised that he was supposed to cheat. As he watched however, Naruto suddenly stopped for a split second. He then grinned and started writing down answers like he wasn't even reading the questions. Sasuke frowned, but couldn't say anything at the moment, though he was going to ask his friend what happened later.

Naruto himself didn't fully understand what he had just done. In his worry over how to pass the exam without cheating, he had lost some control on his chakra blocks that 'tamed' his appearance. This meant that some of his chakra was naturally being funnelled to his eyes, which reverted to their 'purple lighting state.'

A slight panic attack had suddenly overtaken the genin, and he released a large amount of chakra through his eyes subconsciously. He looked up to see if anyone noticed the burst of chakra, only to see everyone frozen. Not looking at him, just frozen where they were. Everything looked slightly duller, even though he knew his vision was sharper than ever. Naruto then realised that he couldn't smell or hear anything. He jerked back and stood up in shock, only to become even more surprised when no one batted an eyelid.

He was becoming slightly freaked out, so walked up to Ibiki and waved his hand in front of the man's face. He just continued to stare forward. Naruto wasn't quite sure what was going on, but he decided to take full advantage of the situation. Walking over to Sakura's seat, he looked at her completed paper and memorised everything that she had written down. He didn't understand one word of it, but he could remember it.

Just as he sat back down in his chair, he became aware of the sights, sounds and smells around him again, and everyone carried on as if nothing had happened. Naruto was still kind of weirded out, but when no one mentioned anything about him wandering around the room, he reckoned he should just go with it. So, grinning, he wrote down all of the correct answers without pause, then laid back and waited for the final question.

xxxx

"Everyone, the tenth question is about to be handed out" Ibiki called, then waited till everyone's attention was on him. "There is something you need to know about this question. You can choose not to take it. Should you do so, you will leave the chūnin exams and you can try again in six months."

"However, if you decide to take the question and get it wrong, then you will fail the chūnin exam and you will never be allowed to take another exam again, you will remain a genin for the rest of your life!" At that, everyone burst into chatter, before Kiba Inuzuka piped up,

"Oy, you can't do that, that's totally unfair!" he shouted, but Ibiki merely smirked at him and called back,

"Hey, my exam my rules kid. You're just unlucky you got me as a proctor."

With looks of utter dejection, a lot of teams filed out, but before too many could go, someone started shouting. "Well, no matter what you say I'm not scared because me and my team will pass this exam no problem. You can try and frighten me into leaving but I am telling you now it will not work. No one can stop me doing what I want to do!" Naruto announced dramatically. Rock Lee's eyes nearly filled with tears at the sight of a golden sunrise appearing behind the red head.

Due to Naruto's outburst, a lot of the teams that were about to leave sat back down and stared forward confidently, emboldened by his words. Ibiki sighed and gave it a little while longer, but when it was clear that everyone left, nearly two thirds of the candidates, weren't going anywhere, he called it. "Well done, you all pass the first stage of the exam. The test wasn't the tenth question, it was whether to take the question."

"As a chūnin you will be faced with hard decisions, but you have to complete the mission no matter what, and you can't turn back when things start to look difficult." Before Ibiki could say anything else, a very sexy and very inappropriate blur crashed through the window and unfolded itself in front of the genin.

"Damn it Anko, you're early again," Ibiki moaned, but blushed when Anko turned and gave him a seductive wink. Everyone stared at the woman who was wearing nothing but a mesh bodysuit and a trench coat, drops of blood falling from some very conspicuous noses. Nailed to the wall above her with kunai was a banner with the words, 'The Sexy and Seductive Second Proctor Anko Mitarashi!'

"Wow Ibiki there are loads of them left, you getting worthless in your old age or what?" Anko asked, provoking a very red tick mark to appear on Ibiki's forehead, though he controlled himself. "Alright then maggots, I promise that after you are through with MY part of the exam, at least half of you will have failed. Or you will have died and also failed, depends on how good you are. As it is, make your way to training area 44."

She shunshined out of the room, leaving the remaining genin strictly disgusted, dumbfounded or unconscious from localised blood loss from the nose (Kiba and... Ino?). Still, everyone made their way to the training ground to meet whatever horrors the crazy purple haired lady had in store for them.

xxxx

Everyone gazed up at the enormous forest, and then the ten meter tall iron fence that surrounded it. On a large plaque in red letters it read 'Training Area 44: Forest of Death' and just below that it read, 'Do Not Enter Without Permission: Danger of Death'. Naturally, this made everyone very anxious, except Naruto, whose eyes gleamed with anticipation as he took in the smell of the forest, which somehow seemed more natural to him.

Anko spotted the red head Leaf genin who was not intimidated, so decided to do it herself. She slipped a kunai into her hand and threw it with pinpoint accuracy so that it would slice his cheek. She was left stunned however when without looking he brought his arm up insanely fast and caught the kunai in between two fingers, then threw it back to her just as fast and instead sliced her cheek.

He turned to her with a massive grin on his face. That quickly dropped and he was finally intimidated though, when Anko stared at him, and slowly licked the blood that was running down her cheek, smearing it over her lips and moaning slightly. Satisfied that she had finally scared him and hidden her own surprise at his apparent skills, she explained how the test worked.

"Each team will be given one of two scrolls, a heaven scroll and an earth scroll. The objective is to gather the other scroll you need from another team, ensuring that you fight, and then to make your way to the tower at the centre of the forest. Do not open your scrolls before then. You have five days."

Making sure that the message had sunk in, she motioned to a tent some way behind her. "Line up at that tent to receive your scrolls and sign the permission slips so that the Leaf isn't responsible when some of you are killed. Find your assigned gate and then the second part of the exam begins at the sound of the klaxon."

Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura all stood at their entrance to the Forest of Death, heaven scroll safely tucked away in a sealing scroll that Sasuke had in his jacket.

The Klaxon sounded, and as one team seven entered the Forest of Death. A psychopathic avenger, an unlimited chakra supply amnesiac and an abandoned genius with nothing to lose took their next steps towards becoming the legends they were born to be.


	8. Chapter 8

Instinctual Release

Chapter 8

A/N: Thanks for all of the reviews, follows, and favourites people, I'm actually ecstatic that my first fanfiction has done so well. I know people have a lot of questions but I can't reveal much without ruining some of the story, so my advice is to just wait and see...

Disclaimer: Naruto and its affiliates do not belong to me in this universe, I only hope the me that does own it in another universe sends me some of the money.

xxxx

"Your mission was to kill the boy and release the demon in Konoha, and now our spies tell me that not only did that not occur, but the boy is now even more powerful. HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?" The reporting ninja visibly flinched at the tsuchikage's tone. "Your brother Kitsuchi would not have failed in this regard!"

The man in question decided that he better speak, even though he hadn't been asked to, lest the tsuchikage's ramblings lead to a severe punishment or even execution. "Sir, I understand my failures and beg for the chance to redeem myself. The chūnin exams are held in Konoha this year; I respectfully request the opportunity to rectify my mistake."

The tsuchikage stared at his secret son, Shiozuketsuchi, and considered the request. He may be old, older even than the hokage, but he was not senile. Up till now, Shiozuketsuchi had a perfect track record, so he decided that it would be worth giving the man just one more chance. "Prepare a 'genin' team to participate so you can invade the village. There will be a task force on the outskirts to create a distraction for you when you attempt to take out the boy."

Shiozuketsuchi nodded, and slipped out of the tsuchikage's office. He had a lot of preparations to make.

xxxx

Sakura wasn't sure whether or not she should be grateful towards her team mates, or sickened and terrified. They had decided to head straight to the tower and ambush any teams that came their way. Unfortunately, fate had not been so kind. They had been in the forest for two days, and they now had four earth scrolls and five heaven scrolls.

A team of Rain-nin had managed to ambush them. Unfortunately, they had targeted Sakura, and while she was a lot better now, they caught everyone by surprise. The Rain-nin had thrust a kunai at the base of her neck, when instead of engaging their own opponents, Naruto and Sasuke came to her rescue.

That she was grateful for, but what sickened her was the way in which they had saved her. Naruto had proceeded to use a kunai to sever the shinobi's arm from his body. He had then used said arm to beat the shinobi to which the arm had belonged to death, while Sasuke stood there laughing at the scene. The other two Rain-nin were in the middle of throwing up at the sight.

"Nobody hurts my friends!" Naruto declared, stunning Sakura that he considered her a friend, something she thought could never happen since they had slashed her legs. At that Sasuke's face had hardened, and he used a fire jutsu to burn the Rain-nin to death, not even caring about the scroll they had. Then it was Naruto's turn to laugh.

That had been the day before, so they were extra wary today, especially since they hadn't encountered another team for a few hours. Naturally, that situation didn't last as long as they hoped.

All three of them stumbled and nearly fell to the ground as the tree that they landed on keeled over and threatened to throw its inhabitants to the, what they could now see was swampy, floor.

Regaining their composure by leaping to another tree, they searched for the source of the attack, Sasuke unconsciously activating his Sharingan. That became redundant when the assailant made himself known instead.

"Well, the little babies didn't injure themselves when the tree moved. Well done, but don't let that think that I'm impressed by you squirts," a man in a dull brown and rust red outfit said. He was fairly tall, with a thick beard like Asuma, the hokage's son, though it was less neat. He had dark hair that trailed over his face in long strands, like he was constantly sweating, along with rather sharp features for someone from The Village Hidden in the Stone. Rather like his niece, Kurotsuchi, not that any of the leaf genins would know who that was.

Without providing an answer, Sasuke immediately launched himself at the foreign shinobi, who was definitely _not_ a genin, before either Sakura or Naruto could do anything. The man's eyes widened ever so slightly, but he reacted faster than Sasuke's Sharingan could track his movements.

He blocked Sasuke's initial punch and immediately countered with a rock covered blow to the stomach. Everyone suddenly knew that they were facing a very high level opponent, being able to activate such a jutsu without hand signs or even calling its name.

As Sasuke flew backwards at another tree, the shinobi sped towards Naruto and Sakura. She was about to move, but Naruto remained fixed to the branch. She grabbed his sleeve, but he remained rooted to the spot, and Sakura noticed that he was suddenly a few inches taller, and looked like he did before he suppressed his own chakra. She shuddered at how menacing his eyes were.

xxxx

Naruto was about to leap away as the obviously skilled shinobi came towards him and Sakura, but everything seemed to disappear around him as he caught two words from the shinobi, "this time." He became rigid as memories flashed into his head again.

"_**Kit. KIT! Goddamn it this is not the time for you to accept your fate! Whatever that guy is about to do, DO NOT LET HIM TOUCH YOU!"**__ Naruto suddenly started struggling even harder as the 'ANBU' stalked towards him, the man's face covered by the mask of a boar. The other one held him tight however, and then searing pain washed through his stomach, followed by the same sensation in his head._

Naruto suddenly started as he got around the fact that he had somehow been talking to himself as if he was someone, or something, else. He decided to bring that up later along with the other stuff when he saw the hokage next, but for now he knew that the man that was currently flying towards him was the guy responsible for his memory loss.

Shiozuketsuchi's eyes widened in surprise as a purple aura encompassed Naruto Uzumaki, the boy he had been charged with killing.

With a cry of defiance, a wave of hot air, at an incredibly high pressure, exploded from Naruto as his eyes settled on Shiozuketsuchi. Along with it rolled a burst of killing intent that caused all three people that witnessed his transformation to flinch. Despite how much he wanted to kill the man in front of him, Naruto decided to try something out.

He channelled chakra to his eyes, which had reverted to the state they were in when he passed out at Sasuke's, and then released it in a burst. He felt a satisfied smug adorn his features as everything around him dulled in colour slightly, and the world seemed to stand still.

xxxx

Shiozuketsuchi did not know what he had been expecting when he re-engaged the boy that he was supposed to have killed, never mind that he should have died, as the technique he had used was designed to kill jinchuriki.

What he had definitely not been expecting was the boy to recognise him, both due to the memory loss that he had found out about and the fact that he had disguised himself as an ANBU the last time. He had also not expected to see a pair of eyes that rivalled the Sharingan in their intensity, purple irises with darker purple lighting radiating from the pupil to the edges of the eye.

So it was only natural after such a string of surprises to think he could not be surprised anymore. This was quickly dismissed as Naruto _disappeared_ on him, and re-appeared a split second later, planting a right hook into his face. He had not been expecting the jinchuriki's speed to rival the hiraishin of the yondaime hokage that had decimated nearly fifty percent of his village's ninja in the Third Great Shinobi War.

Not willing to risk himself against such an opponent, at least not without more information, he used his skill with Earth Style to immediately sink into the floor. He noticed that the moment he started his escape, all three of the squirts sped towards him. He smirked as he realised that they wouldn't reach him, which only seemed to anger them as he disappeared completely.

Then everything went white for the three genin as the entire forest exploded around them.

xxxx

Halfway through day three, Sakura finally opened her eyes, but quickly shut them again as the light seemed to burn them. She opened them again, slowly, and took stock of her situation. She realised that the foreign shinobi had let off a huge explosive trap as he disappeared, and she and the other two had been caught right in the middle of it.

Looking down, she saw that all of her body parts were still attached to her, so the next thing was to make sure she could feel everything. This was accomplished as she tried to sit up and _everything_ hurt. She nearly passed out as it felt like her entire skeleton had been shattered, but it didn't hurt quite as much as she tried and succeeded to sit up the second time.

A few minutes later and she was standing up having pretty much fully regained her composure, so she began to look for the other two. Some of her old affections came to the surface involuntarily as she found Sasuke sprawled out on the forest floor some fifteen feet away from where she was.

She ran over to him, tears threatening to build in her eyes, hoping beyond hope that he wasn't dead. She let out a breath that she didn't realise she'd been holding when she found a pulse. Using her small water spear, she formed the water from the moisture in the air, though it took longer and used more chakra, then dropped it on Sasuke's face. Crude, but effective.

Sasuke woke spluttering and coughing, and he rolled over and spit out the freezing cold water. He immediately grabbed his stomach as a wave of pain from where he had been punched washed over him, out competing the pain signals from the rest of his body, which was just as battered as Sakura.

Without saying a word, they both supported each other as they began to search for Naruto. When they found him, despair crept into their minds. This time, Sakura's tears fell without hesitation, and Sasuke fell to his knees.

Naruto was embedded in a tree, covered in soot and blood, obviously having taken the brunt of the explosion. What worried Sakura and Sasuke most was that his left arm was missing.

xxxx

Sasuke grunted as he and Sakura placed Naruto on the ground in front of the tower. It had taken them another couple of hours to fix themselves and bandage up Naruto, before placing him on a makeshift stretcher and carrying him to the tower. They made it to the tower by the end of the third day.

In a way, it worked to their advantage, as they passed several other teams and hit two ambushes on the way to the tower. Seeing the state that they were in, no one even bothered to attack them though, simply assuming that they had been thoroughly beaten and were no longer even trying to get a scroll, merely giving up.

In truth, they still had all of the scrolls that they had before the foreign shinobi had attacked them.

After resting for a few moments, they picked Naruto back up again, grateful that he was no longer bleeding through the bandages that covered the stump of his arm, ending just below the elbow. Sakura looked back at the stump, swearing that the stump had been _above_ his elbow. She shook her head, thinking she was just imagining things from fatigue.

They collapsed into the room that they were directed to, and opened up one of the earth scrolls and one of the heaven scrolls. A poof appeared from the both of them and a smiling Iruka Umino appeared in front of them. He was smiling so brightly that his eyes were closed, so he didn't immediately see the state that team seven was in.

When he did, his smile disappeared, and a single solitary tear leaked from his left eye at the sight of his favourite student on the makeshift stretcher. His eyes traced over everyone, immediately searching for any substantial wounds.

Sakura had a nasty cut across her forehead, which had been continually leaking as they hadn't had the resources to treat and bandage it. Sasuke had a hole in his shoulder where a line of wood had pierced him. They both looked pale and sickly and he was about to go and get a medic when Sasuke slumped to the side, unconscious, followed shortly after by Sakura.

Iruka stared at the spot where Naruto's left arm should have been, silently praying that he was under a genjutsu, or Naruto was pulling a prank, or something. He knew that he wasn't when he unconsciously ran to the boy's side and screamed into his unconscious chest.

A couple of jounin who were in the tower appeared at the sound of Iruka crying over Naruto. At first they thought the boy was dead, but after a quick check found that he was just unconscious. They chose not to look at the stump where his arm had once been.

Several hours later all three of them were still unconscious, lying next to each other in the makeshift hospital in the tower. Kakashi and Iruka sat side by side, silently willing the team to be ok. Well Iruka wanted the whole team to be ok, Kakashi was only really worried about Sakura. No one, not even the nurses, noticed the strain Naruto's bandages, where new ones had been wrapped around the stump at mid forearm level.

xxxx

Sakura woke up slowly, blinking at the morning sun that streamed through the windows. She lifted her arm to cover her eyes, which for some reason caused someone to shout a bit too loudly, then scurry out of the room calling for a doctor.

She turned her head to see both Naruto and Sasuke groaning in adjacent beds as the shout woke them up. The door opened again, and a stern looking man with greying hair wearing a doctor's coat and Iruka entered the room, both with worried looks on their faces.

"Iruka-sensei, where are we?" Sakura said, seeing as Naruto had fallen unconscious again and Sasuke was still trying to get his bearings.

"Sakura, you are in the temporary hospital set up at the tower, well done you passed the second test!" Iruka said with pride, though Sakura could tell he was worried about them.

Before either of them could say anything more, the doctor stepped forward and began talking. "Sakura Haruno, my name is Dr. Takeshi, you and your friends have been unconscious for a day, it is now late afternoon on the fourth day of the exam. When we examined you, you had a severe concussion, a semi-serious laceration on your forehead, lots of lacerations across your arms and legs, bruising covering around 72% of your body and severe dehydration, along with minor blood loss."

"Sasuke Uchiha was in almost the exact same condition, save for a major puncture wound in his right shoulder, which had the beginnings of septicaemia. Naruto Uzumaki had major blood loss, the beginnings of a blood clot in his brain, his left arm is missing from just above the wrist, he has third degree burns covering almost 50% of his body along with a similar level of bruising and laceration as you."

"However, he also had a dislocated shoulder, he has three broken ribs, a slipped disc in his spine, a floating collarbone and a cracked skull." By this time Iruka was sitting on the only chair in the room, hyperventilating, eyes wide at just how close to death his ex-students had come. He was supposed to have left after he had been summoned, but he refused to leave the room until they made him.

Both him and the doctor looked up in surprise when Sakura said that they were wrong about Naruto. She was looking at them very confused, and they knew that she no longer had a concussion. "I'm afraid you're wrong Dr. Takeshi, when me and Sasuke bandaged Naruto up his arm had been removed from midway between the elbow and the shoulder."

She was confused at how the doctor could have missed that, which prevented her from welling up at the thought of what happened to them. She still wasn't sure how to feel about Naruto, and she still had some feelings of affection for Sasuke, but she was too confused at the moment to dwell on those thoughts.

They all looked over at Naruto's arm, to see that the bandages had become bloody again. Sakura was even more confused when she saw that the bandages were closer to his wrist, when she knew that his wound had been a lot higher than that. The doctor went over and began unwrapping Naruto's arm.

However, at that moment, Sasuke finally decided to make his presence known. "What the hell! Where am I? Where is that bastard? I'll kill him! Why does my shoulder hurt? Why has most have Naruto's arm grown back? Why is Iruka-sensei here? Who is that guy?"

Everyone just stared at him as he finished. For quite a while. They then looked at Naruto's arm again, as the bandages had just fallen off. Everyone suddenly blanched at the sight of the arm, Sakura could barely describe it. _Boiling _was the only word that came to mind. The arm had indeed regenerated up to the wrist now.

Everyone in the room felt Naruto's chakra spike, even though he was unconscious. They stared transfixed at Naruto's arm, as over the course of ten minutes, his wrist and hand _grew back_. Unencumbered by the bandages, his chakra sped up the regeneration speed, and within that time his hand had grown, and by the way he unconsciously flexed it, become completely functional.

Naturally, the doctor ran out of the room, Sasuke fainted, Iruka cried and Sakura screamed.

xxxx

Several hours later, and a lot of diagnostics and medical jutsu on all three of them, team seven were finally left in peace until only Dr. Takeshi remained. Together, Sakura and Sasuke had relayed what had happened with the foreign shinobi to the doctor, as well as an ANBU to take their statement.

They were now waiting for Naruto to wake up as the doctor held smelling salts under his nose. Everyone had been astounded that he had been able to regenerate an entire arm at all, let alone in a single day. They had quickly deduced that it was Naruto's chakra, half-demon as it was, that had caused the regeneration, and not a bloodline or anything else. They also reckoned that he had been unconscious for so long because of it.

He moaned as the smelling salts did their job, and opened his eyes slowly. They all watched as he braced himself on both arms and pushed himself up, seemingly not feeling any undue pain in his left arm as he put weight on it. He turned to everyone and blinked at them owlishly, before offering a wide grin.

"Hey great, we all survived that guy's explosion in one piece," he exclaimed, completely missing the way a large sweat drop formed on everyone's heads. "Well if I'm going to kill him, we better get this exam over with and start training." Neither Sasuke nor Sakura missed the way he seemed to automatically include them in his revenge plot, something that Sasuke would ponder for a long time after the exam was over.

Everyone exited their own thoughts and returned their attention to Naruto at his next words. "Oh yeah, I figured out who that guy is by the way. When he charged at me and Sakura he said 'this time' and then my memory of the night I was attacked and lost my memory returned, rather ironically. I recognised his smell immediately, he was the one who delivered the blow!"

The doctor immediately contacted the ANBU with this information, while Iruka reported directly to the hokage. Everyone seemed to forget to tell Naruto about his arm.

xxxx

Team seven were currently standing in the spectator area of the small chamber where the preliminary rounds were being explained to them. There were too many people that made it through, so they had to cut down the numbers with one on one sparring matches.

Teams seven, eight and ten had all made it through, along with one team from The Hidden Rock, one team from The Hidden Sand, one from The Hidden Sound and Kabuto Yakushi's team. However, at the announcement that you could bow out now if you felt unable to continue, Kabuto receded from the exam.

Naruto narrowed his eyes at the man, still not liking him for some reason. All of their jounin senseis were in the room as well, though Kakashi naturally stood with Sakura, and none of the other teams failed to notice the division between them.

Eventually, the preliminary rounds were about to begin, and everyone watched the proctor, one Gekkō Hayate, as he announced the first pairing. "Would Sasuke Uchiha and Akado Yoroi please make your way to the match arena."

The first round, was about to begin.


	9. Chapter 9

Instinctual Release

Chapter 9

Disclaimer: None of the Narutoverse belongs to me save for the plot of this story.

xxxx

Sasuke Uchiha was particularly proud of his match, as everyone just stared in stunned silence. Well, almost everyone, Sakura was smiling, albeit slightly, and Naruto was whooping like a moron, jumping up and down and leaking no small amount of excited bloodlust.

The moment the match had started, Yoroi had sprinted towards Sasuke with his hand outstretched, a blue glow surrounding said hand. Sasuke had seen this with his awakened Sharingan, and _jumped_ at Yoroi. Mid-jump his arm lashed out, gripping Yoroi's wrist. He spun in the air and positioned himself so he was parallel to the floor. He used Yoroi's wrist as a pivot, and brought his leg down. Yoroi's arm snapped at the elbow with a sickening crack.

Everyone broke out of their stupor as Hayate called the match, and medics rushed in to treat the screaming man. Several of the genin present felt sick at the sight of bone poking out of the skin. His screams continued to be heard all the way to the medical wing.

Hayate called out the next match. "Next fight will be Kurotsuchi and Kankuro! Will the contestants please make their way to the arena." He then coughed profusely as the two shinobi appeared opposite each other at the exact same time.

Kurotsuchi looked her opponent over and noticed the 'cat-ear hood' that Kankuro wore and could think one thing, 'KAWAII!' She quickly entered 'shinobi mode' and began to actually assess her opponent, but felt a sudden bout of self-consciousness as she noticed his eyes roaming her body.

Ignoring it, she looked at the massive bandaged item on his back with a tuft of brown hair poking out of the top. She looked at Hayate to confirm that she was ready. He glanced one more time at both contestants and then raised his arm. "Begin!"

Kurotsuchi took the initiative and charged towards Kankuro while pulling a short sword out of a sheath hidden by her clothes. Kankuro's eyes widened slightly, but he seemed generally nonplussed at the revelation.

She was within feet of him and he still hadn't moved into any kind of defensive position. Alarm bells rang in her head but she decided to take the chance and end it before the Sand shinobi revealed his trump card. She was still shocked however, when her sword sunk into his body up to the hilt, her training causing her to piece Kankuro's heart.

She almost didn't notice when there was no blood. Almost. She leapt back as quickly as she could, abandoning her sword, as multiple blades unfolded out of Kankuro's arms. One of the blades nicked her on the arm that she had used the sword with, having not been able to retract it in time.

The real Kankuro stepped out of the bandages as the henge faded to reveal a puppet where everyone thought he had been. He smirked as Kurotsuchi suddenly felt a numb feeling in her arm, and cursed herself for being cut, realising the blade had been covered in poison.

However, the numb feeling quickly disappeared, so it must have been one of the many poisons her jounin sensei had made her resistant to. Kankuro didn't know this, and so assumed that she was becoming more crippled by the second, especially as she acted as if that was the case. She fell onto her back a moment later, pretending to be paralyzed.

He strode towards her and bent over. "Well I must say, you look kinda stiff, any chance you're having trouble moving?" Kankuro called, feeling assured of victory. The smirk on his face quickly disappeared when she smiled evilly.

"No, no trouble at all," she said, and she wrapped her legs around his neck and began choking him with her thighs. He blushed slightly at the position that he suddenly found himself in. Kankuro wasn't sure what to do; he could control his puppet well enough that he could escape her, but then again...

Kurotsuchi blushed a bright crimson just as Kankuro passed out, as he had smiled and said "Totally worth it..." She realised where she had been holding his head and why he hadn't used his puppet to remove her, she had only done it to make him move but thought maybe he couldn't control his puppet as well as she thought. Now she knew that he had just decided to stay where he was.

"Winner: Kurotsuchi. Would Sakura and Ino please make their way to the arena," Hayate said, repeating the same line for every match. He looked up at the balcony and noticed Kankuro's sister fuming, having known exactly what her brother had done. He snickered to himself, thinking it was probably better that the poor kid was in the medical wing. He knew Yugao would have beaten him to within an inch of his life if he had done what that kid did.

Ino smirked at Sakura. "Hey there forehead, you may have gotten Sasuke on your team, but that only means that you won't have trained as hard and I will totally own you," Ino called confidently, though on the inside she was doubting her own words. Sakura just stared at her resolutely, not talking or even sweating.

"Begin!"

Ino ran towards Sakura at full speed, expecting to engage in a taijutsu spar, but Sakura did some hand signs faster than her untrained eyes could see and whispered the name of a jutsu that she couldn't hear. Ino let herself relax slightly, as it appeared that the jutsu did nothing or had backfired. Naturally, this gave Ino an illogical confidence boost.

Sakura smirked on the inside, Ino hadn't even noticed that the humidity had risen an appreciable amount. It still wasn't enough to put her plan into action yet, so she reluctantly agreed to engage in the taijutsu spar. She realised that with Kakashi's training, she was far better technically than Ino.

Despite her obvious advantage, Ino was a bit quicker and a bit faster, negating Sakura's advantage to a standstill. Ino was trying desperately to figure out how to trap Sakura with her mind transfer jutsu, but she couldn't think of anything other than sacrificing her hair to bind Sakura.

Before she could make a decision, Sakura jumped backwards and threw a flurry of kunai and shuriken at Ino, forcing her to abandon her taijutsu. She dodged and parried the flying death traps, then turned her attention back on Sakura, but she was too late.

Sakura had used the distraction to begin doing hand signs, and finished just as Ino refocused on her and began to charge again. Using the water in the air required quite a bit of chakra, but that was why Sakura had used the humidity jutsu.

With a smile, she called out her favourite jutsu. "Water Style: Fluid Water Spear!" Ino saw all the water in the air condense into a large blob about the size of Sakura, before it stretched out and sharpened into a large spear. She stared wide eyed as the spear flew towards her.

Ino dodged to the side at the last moment, but received a deep gash to her side. She turned to Sakura, who had an evil smirk on her face. Ino didn't turn fast enough to see the spear returning from behind, about to impale her through the chest. No one saw the flash of red in Sakura's eyes.

"The winner is Sakura," Hayate shouted, as he launched at Ino and dragged her out of the way of the attack that would have killed or crippled her. Sakura looked slightly put out at not finishing the fight with a kill, shocking Kakashi, who knew that Sakura would never intentionally harm, let alone kill, a fellow leaf shinobi. He glanced over at Naruto, who was smirking triumphantly.

Sakura suddenly became aware of how she was feeling, and felt utterly horrified at how she had acted. She had tried to _kill_ Ino. She had been enjoying the thought of murder. She suddenly felt very faint, and the last thing she saw was Hayate's face turn from rage to worry as darkness consumed her.

"Naruto, what the hell did you do to Sakura?" Kakashi asked as he stalked over to the still smirking Naruto, fire in his eye.

"Whatever do you mean sensei?" Naruto asked innocently, and for a moment Kakashi didn't catch the sarcasm in Naruto's voice. He saw the glint in Naruto's eyes though, and immediately replaced his anger.

"You know damn well what I'm talking about. Tell me what happened or I will tell the hokage that you have sabotaged the exams and then take you to T&I myself for a little interrogation session," Kakashi said darkly, hoping that would be enough to scare Naruto into telling him what he did.

Naruto looked at him with barely contained contempt, and a little of the nine tails' darker side emerged. "Foolish sensei, my chakra was able to influence my other half, what makes you think that I was the only one my chakra could influence, especially now that I have regained my former level of control before being imprisoned in myself." Kakashi just stared at Naruto with hatred.

"Naruto, the moment these preliminaries are over, we are going straight to the hokage and we are going to talk about your situation and how you figured out that you used to be two different beings." With that, Kakashi left to make his way to the medical wing and check up on Sakura. Who knows what that demon could have done to her?

Everyone turned back to the arena to wait for Hayate to announce the next match. "Would Temari and Misumi please make their way to the arena," Hayate said yet again. He was getting really sick of saying that. He started coughing again. Temari and Misumi made their way down to the arena.

From the look of things, Temari figured that her opponent was a close-quarters expert, which was perfect for her, as she was a long range expert. She smirked. Hayate started the match.

Xxxx

Everyone cheered as Misumi was carried away on a stretcher, covered in blood. Temari didn't have a scratch on her.

xxxx

"Would Shino and Shikamaru please make their way to the arena." Everyone's chatter from the previous fight died down to watch the two as they, very slowly, made their way down to the arena.

"Begin."

Everyone waited with bated breath as the two of them stared at each other, remaining perfectly still, not giving each other an inch of breathing room. Both knew each other's clan jutsus, or at least had some idea, and so may have a way to counter. Through that logic, they both engaged in a pure taijutsu spar.

Neither of them specialised in taijutsu, and both of their forms were sloppy and slow, without much imagination and little opportunity to counter or go on the offense, barely above academy level. No one had noticed the kunai that Shikamaru had left where he originally stood. He manoeuvred the fight around the room, occasionally pulling out a kunai only to drop it when Shino made use of the distraction.

They both jumped back from each other, as taijutsu obviously wasn't working. As such, they could only resort to their clan jutsus. Shino raised his arms and established the psychic link with his insects that emerged from his body. He felt Shikamaru's Shadow Bind Jutsu using his bug's shadows and trapping him in one place.

Shino failed to notice the ninja wire that Shikamaru had attached to the dropped kunai spread around the field. Shikamaru jumped back as the wave of kikaichu crashed where he had been standing. Shino's eyebrows rose above his sunglasses in surprise, suddenly realising that the 'dropped' kunai were arranged roughly in a circle and had ninja wire attached to them.

"Shadow Style: Mass Paralysis," Shikamaru called, and all of Shino's kikaichu suddenly froze. Shikamaru ran through the hand signs for the regular shadow bind and caught Shino again, knowing that the mass paralysis would only last for a few more seconds. He jogged backwards until Shino was next to his wall, having manoeuvred him into position. Then he threw his head back, causing Shino to knock himself out. The Mass Paralysis ended, and all of the kikaichu flew back to their host. Hayate called the match.

xxxx

After a five minute interval Hayate again spoke up. "Ok everyone, time for match number six. Gin and Kin make your way to the arena." The match was extremely short. Kin attempted to use a sound based genjutsu which Gin thwarted by sticking mud in his ears. Being a genjutsu specialist Kin had no defence against Gin's taijutsu.

"The winner is Gin. Naruto and Kiba, make your way to the arena." Before Naruto could jump down, Kakashi laid a hand on his shoulder. "Listen to me Naruto. Don't you dare use you purple cloak, or I will _end you_, hokage be damned." Naruto just kept his back to Kakashi, grinning like a mad man. He landed opposite Kiba a moment later.

"Well Kiba, looks like it's your lucky day. Seeing as you're a fellow Leaf shinobi, I promise not to kill or permanently cripple you," Naruto said, a sadistic grin never leaving his face.

"Yeah right Naruto, we all know you were dead last at the academy," Kiba countered, snickering at the orange wearing red head. He was actually kind of nervous, being present when the hokage told them Naruto was now technically the nine tails incarnate, even though he was also still Naruto.

This became evident when Naruto just stared at him owlishly, and he remembered that Naruto/nine tails had also lost his memory. He hoped that would be enough to throw Naruto off balance, because he didn't know much about Naruto now.

Hayate took one look at them to see if they were finished. He then began the match.

Knowing that Naruto was now also the nine tails, on top of his already monstrous chakra reserves, Kiba decided that he would assess Naruto's skills through a taijutsu spar. Naruto met his challenge. Kiba opened with a right hook; Naruto ducked under it and used his legs to propel an uppercut to Kiba's jaw.

Kiba leaned back and pivoted, bringing his left leg in for a roundhouse kick to the ribs. He was momentarily shocked when Naruto let him hit, before grabbing Kiba's leg. Naruto brought his elbow down on Kiba's leg, who jerked at the last moment so that the blow met his shin rather than cracking his knee.

Kiba pulled away from Naruto and tested his leg, wincing as a sharp jolt of pain shot up his leg, but it was bearable. Naruto hung back, wary of engaging a taijutsu specialist when he was a ninjutsu specialist. He couldn't activate his cloak, so he couldn't augment his speed and power to get one up on the Inuzuka.

Kiba was taken aback as Naruto released the chakra block to his eyes, revealing their lightning form. "Hey Naruto, since when have you had a bloodline?" Kiba asked, not taking his eyes off Naruto's, wary of whatever this eyes based jutsu was. He had heard of the prowess of the Sharingan and knew the strength of the Byakugan first hand.

Akamaru growled, alerting Kiba that Naruto was building up chakra for an attack. Then a small burst was released from Naruto's new eyes. The next thing Kiba knew, Naruto had appeared next to him, a right hander ploughing straight into his face. Then a knee to his stomach, a kick to his ribs, an elbow in the back, all faster than Kiba or even Akamaru could see.

All of the jounin in the audience, including Kakashi and those from the other villages, stared wide-eyed as Naruto disappeared and reappeared as fast as, if not faster than The Yellow Flash, Minato's Flying Thunder God Technique. They knew it was something to do with those eyes of his.

Naruto/nine tails pulled back suddenly, panting and sweating, the chakra exhaustion of using the technique so many times showing. Kiba was battered and bleeding, but he wasn't out, and Akamaru could still fight. Kiba fed Akamaru a pill which turned his fur red, before he transformed into an identical copy of Kiba, rage apparent on both of their faces.

"Fang Over Fang!" Kiba shouted, as he and Akamaru performed their clan's signature jutsu, flying towards Naruto extremely fast, spinning like a drill. Naruto jumped over the two of them, and brought his hands up into his own technique. He grinned, realising that he had been missing his favourite technique.

"Multi-Shadow Clone Jutsu," Naruto called, and instantly there were four more of Naruto present. They charged at the two Kibas. An unexpected, quick and vicious axe kick slammed into the skull of one of them, which turned out to be a now unconscious Akamaru. Kiba turned to his fallen friend, but his distraction cost him.

One Naruto slid underneath Kiba and kicked him into the air, then another jumped up and kicked him higher, before another launched off of the second and kicked Kiba higher again. Then the final and real Naruto appeared above Kiba, and brought an axe kick down like with Akamaru. Kiba plummeted like a stone, leaving a small crater next to his dog, as he too fell unconscious.

"The winner is Naruto Uzumaki," Hayate called, slight surprise evident in his voice. Even more surprise was evident in the faces of everyone else in the room who knew him, questioning when he got so strong, when he got a bloodline, how he had so much chakra and, for everyone who knew he was also the nine tails, _why hadn't he tried to kill Kiba!"_

xxxx

The final three matches happened very fast compared to the rest. The moment Hayate called for Choji and Kabuto to enter the arena, Kabuto forfeited, saying his skill set wasn't suitable for opposing the Akimichi fighting style.

Hinata, even through her lack of confidence, managed to defeat the shinobi that was a part of the Rock team, who looked put out that not all of them managed to make it through. He had no experience against the gentle fist of the Hyuuga, and fell quickly.

The final match was the only one which resulted in a death. Gaara, the apparent leader of the Sand shinobi team, disappeared in a swirl of sand and reappeared in the arena, causing the Sound-nin Dozu to sweat profusely. Even Hayate was a little affected by the amount of killing intent being released by the boy, and he was a jounin.

Dozu actually had a fairly effective sound attack that disrupted the sand that Gaara seemed able to control with nothing more than his willpower. However, the moment he started using his arms the sand, which was still pouring out of his gourd a minute later, became twice as fast. Dozu didn't stand a chance, especially when every offensive was blocked by the sand, forming a perfect defence.

At a falter from Dozu, no one could do anything, as the sand suddenly engulfed him, and at the closing of Gaara's fist he became nothing more than a red stain upon the ground. Even the jounin were affected by the sight of the mangled corpse that Gaara left behind, his sand withdrawing into the gourd on his back, along with most of the blood that used to be circulating within Dozu's body.

The only remaining Sound shinobi, Zaku, who got a bye, was extremely grateful that he hadn't had to fight either of the opponents his teammates did. However, he was worried about reporting to his commander, being the only one of his team left in the finals. Master Yakushi would not be pleased.

xxxx

Hayate announced the matchups for the finals once the victors who were in the infirmary were brought back to the arena. "The first match will be Sakura Haruno against Choji Akimichi. The second match will be Temari no Sabaku against Gin. The third match will be Sasuke Uchiha against Kurotsuchi. The fourth match will be Naruto Uzumaki against Shikamaru Nara. The fifth match will be Hinata Hyuuga against Zaku. Gaara no Sabaku gets a bye for the first round."

"You all have one month to rest, train and prepare. Good luck everyone."

xxxx

"Don't worry about it father, I know what training I need to do, but it will be troubling." The man nodded to his son, pleased that he understood, and then went out, rather lazily mind, to search for Naruto Uzumaki.

xxxx

"You're going to train me right sensei?" Sakura looked up to Kakashi, who she practically idolised in place of Sasuke ever since he and Naruto had slashed her legs. She still shuddered at the memory. Kakashi thought it was cute.

"Of course Sakura. My main affinity may be lightning, but I have copied a thousand jutsu, so I am going to train you in general strength, speed and taijutsu, but the main focus will be developing your water and earth elemental affinities." Sakura beamed up at Kakashi, looking forward to the month of preparation, determined to catch up with her teammates.

xxxx

Dark clouds threatened a storm as they gathered above The Village Hidden in the Leaves, and a chill spread throughout the village, a light breeze driving everyone inside.

"That is a very interesting proposition lord hokage," a voice hissed, the man's face hidden by a heavy cloak.

"Sasuke needs training, and Kakashi is the only other person who could perform the task. However, he despises the boy, seeing his past self in everything that Sasuke is, and will undoubtedly train the only one on the team that he actually likes, Sakura."

"Very well lord hokage, I accept your offer. It will be interesting to see how he reacts to me," and with that the character slithered out of the room without a sound. The hokage sighed, wondering just what he was doing asking that man of all people to train the boy.


	10. Chapter 10

Instinctual Release

Chapter 10

Disclaimer: Neither Naruto nor any other characters belong to me save for Shiozuketsuchi, currently the only original character.

xxxx

After two more days spent in the hospital, team seven was finally released. Sakura immediately ran off to find Kakashi, knowing that he would definitely train her one on one, he had said as much just after the preliminary elimination round. With a flourish of pink, she disappeared, using a shunshin.

"Well then Sasuke, looks like it's just you and me, TO THE HOKAGE TOWER!" Sasuke winced, painfully. When in battle he and Naruto were totally in sync and shared in their bloodlust. When they were out of battle and Naruto was more like his original academy self, he just wanted to facepalm. Constantly.

"Whatever dobe, just be quiet," Sasuke said, rubbing his temples as he could feel the headache starting already. With that, they both set off to see the sandaime, who was waiting patiently for the conversation he knew he would be faced with.

xxxx

Naruto knocked (hammered) on the door to hear the hokage's voice, "come in." Sasuke felt the change in attitude immediately, sensing how both Naruto and the hokage tensed up in each other's presence. Seeing as Naruto hadn't been told that he was also the nine tails, he figured a very stressful conversation for his best friend was about to ensue.

"Lord hokage, has a sensei been arranged for me, or should I go and find someone?" Sasuke asked calmly, not wanting to be present when Naruto exploded.

"Go to training ground thirteen Sasuke, someone will be waiting for you," the hokage said, not even looking Sasuke in the eye, his gaze fixed firmly on Naruto, who stared back unflinchingly. Sasuke made his exit.

"Hello Naruto... how have you been?" It was a weak opening for the boy he saw as his grandson, he was unable to fathom how Naruto was feeling, he was a different person now, hell, he wasn't technically even a person anymore, and Sarutobi hadn't seen him for a lot longer than was acceptable.

Naruto looked at him with a multitude of emotions swirling within his violet orbs, love, hate, anger, frustration, loneliness, hurt. And Sarutobi felt responsible for every one of those emotions.

"You know, memories have been returning to me constantly since the start of the exam. I remember a lot of the hate and pain that I went through in my childhood. I remember the loneliness, and how there would be no one to pick me up after the academy. I pretty much remember being Naruto Uzumaki for twelve years. I also remember the attack."

"However, I also remember referring to the tailed beasts as my brothers and sisters, I remember a beautiful vixen and an adorable kit of mine, I remember the joy of being a father. I also remember seeing you below me as thousands of ninja launched their useless attacks at me. In short, I remember flashes of around a thousand years of life as a giant nine-tailed fox demon."

Sarutobi leaned forward, unaware that the nine tails had been a father. He saw the look of utter pain in Naruto's eyes, wondering whether something happened or if it was because he had been away from his kit for over a decade. His question was answered, much to his dismay.

"Out of all of that side of me, the strongest memory is that of my vixen and kit lying dead at my feet, killed by a man in an orange mask." Sarutobi gasped inwardly, before he had sacrificed himself the yondaime had mentioned an enemy to mankind who wore an orange mask. Being the professor, he quickly put two and two together, and guessed that this orange masked man was responsible for the nine tails being freed, and its subsequent attack.

It seemed that the Hidden Leaf were not the only ones that lost something that day.

Sarutobi felt his heart fluctuate as Naruto laid his eyes on his, pain written across his face. "Why didn't you tell me grandpa? Who, or what, am I?" The hokage stepped out from behind his desk and embraced Naruto in a hug. Naruto Uzumaki, the nine-tailed fox demon, was crying.

"I am so sorry Naruto. I foolishly thought that if I told you your memories would return and you would attempt to destroy the village again. I never realised what the fox side of you lost that day." Sarutobi held the boy for a long time, allowing all of the grief and pain of the memories Naruto had received to leak onto his hokage coat in the form of tears.

Naruto's smile eventually returned to his face, though this time it wasn't covering up any pain. "You know, despite all of the emotions and memories coming back to me, it all feels detached in a way, like I'm seeing them from behind a screen. So I've decided, I'm the new Naruto Uzumaki!" Naruto blazed a brilliant smile at that, causing the hokage to chuckle lightly.

"Naruto, seeing as we are getting things out in the open, I believe I should tell you something. I know who your parents, human parents that is, were." Naruto looked at him with an odd expression.

"You know, I think I figured it out before I lost my memory, but I can't quite remember who it was," Naruto said, his face in a grimace as he attempted to retrieve the memories.

"Naruto, your father was the yondaime hokage Minato Namikaze, and your mother was Kushina Uzumaki," Sarutobi declared.

"Ohhhhhh yeeeeaaaahhhhh. Now I remember," Naruto looked up and grinned, pleasant surprise evident on his face.

"Naruto, I'm telling you this because it is the reason that Kakashi does not like you. It actually has nothing to do with viewing you as 'the demon', although technically now I suppose you are..."

"You're going off topic old man," Naruto said, some of the fox personality coming through in the form a Sasuke-ish sneer. Sarutobi looked at him and narrowed his eyes, but it was all in good fun.

"Yes well, Minato was actually Kakashi's sensei, and the man filled a void in Kakashi's heart, replacing his disgraced father. In the last great war, Kakashi lost his two best friends, one of which he had to kill himself, and then not long after his father figure sacrificed himself to stop the nine tails, which he then sealed into you."

Naruto's eyes widened slightly, he never knew this about the man. That didn't excuse his behaviour, but at least he could understand it. Sarutobi carried on. "Kakashi has a personal problem with people obsessed with revenge, something which both you and Sasuke are if your team meeting reports are anything to judge by."

Naruto nodded, confirming that he indeed was looking for revenge. "Anyway Naruto, now that that is out of the way and we can all breathe a little easier, I want you to know that I have appointed a jounin instructor for you. You can find him at training ground twenty."

Naruto whooped and jumped out of the open window, racing towards his tutor, completely forgetting to ask who it was. Sarutobi just smiled. It seemed even half human half thousand year old nine-tailed foxes got caught up in the moment every once in a while.

xxxx

Orochimaru was hailed as a genius, both before and after his defection from the village. He knew how to push the body to extremes; he was nearly as good at medical jutsu as his subordinate Kabuto who on a good day could even rival Tsunade. His curse seal was evidence of how close he was to Jiraiya in sealing jutsu. His had the greatest knowledge of jutsu in the world, perhaps even more so than his old teacher.

And yet none of this mattered due to Jiraiya sealing away his chakra, making him nearly as useless as a civilian. His body was still trained to near perfection, he still had his knowledge, and he was still the master the blade known as Kusanagi.

He thought back to the deal that the old fool had made with him. He admitted, he couldn't understand Sarutobi's reasoning behind the deal.

"_Orochimaru, this deal requires nothing more from you than to train Sasuke Uchiha," the hokage said. Orochimaru looked at him with hard eyes, the man he wanted to kill, and yet compared to now was as useless as a mewling kitten. _

"_And what, Lord hokage, would I get out of this deal?"_

"_Access to your chakra equivalent to the same amount you possessed as a genin," the hokage said. Orochimaru was surprised, did the hokage not know what he could do with that much chakra? He wasn't called a genius for nothing. "You will be required to train Sasuke for the final round of the Chūnin Exams, if after one week, things are going well, then you will be given access to your chakra for the remainder of the training."_

"_If, after that time, nothing happens to suggest you will attempt to escape, you will be allowed to do supervised medical research."_

Orochimaru grinned to himself, already thinking up dozens of ways he could use the situation to his advantage. After stealing Sasuke away he was planning on training him anyhow, so this fit perfectly into his plans.

Said boy suddenly appeared in the training ground in a shunshin, looking at Orochimaru with Sharingan activated. If he was surprised, he didn't show it. "Let's get this show on the road then shall we?" Sasuke sneered.

xxxx

Sasuke hurt. A lot. He flopped onto the couch in his living room, too tired and bruised to go to his bed, have a shower, or even get something to eat. He fell asleep on the couch, but woke up around five am the next, the horrible training Orochimaru was putting him through was even invading his dreams!

Every day for the last seven days he had gone to meet his sensei (he still had no idea what the hokage was thinking letting that man do anything other than rot in a cell), who had drilled him mercilessly in the snake style of taijutsu, made him train in speed and strength, put him through such intensive chakra control and capacity training that his Sharingan now had three tomoe in each eye, as well as making sure he could use a sword with at least some confidence.

So, fixing his usual breakfast tomato and rice balls he made his way the training ground to meet the paedophile. The snake sannin was meditating in the middle of the training ground, and after half an hour of just sitting there, Sasuke lost his cool.

Sasuke made his way over to his sensei slowly, before giving a 'hn' and kicking Orochimaru in the knee. To his surprise the man merely opened his eyes, the snake like orbs fixing on something behind Sasuke.

He turned too late to even see what it was before a very recognisable purple blur flashed in front of him and planted her foot in Orochimaru's face. "You! You bastard! I'll fucking kill you! I'm to repay you ten-fold for every fucking thing you did to me as a child! YOU'RE GOING TO DIE!"

Sasuke watched in mild fascination as the proctor for the second stage of the chūnin exam proceeded to try and hit Orochimaru, who just slithered around every attack almost seamlessly. This went on until the purple haired kunoichi fell to the ground sobbing, occasionally throwing out a weak punch that wouldn't even hurt Akamaru.

"Look at her Sasuke. See how destitute she is. This is what happens when you leave loose ends," and with that he drew Kusanagi from its sheath, as without his chakra he couldn't store it in his body anymore. The blade flashed forward, aiming for Anko's neck, but was blocked by a large katana held by a purple haired ANBU.

Orochimaru was surprised that there was a blade that Kusanagi couldn't cut, but the surprise quickly wore off when he realised that he had let his own nature get the better of him. He swore at himself for letting his emotions get the better of him and ruin his plans.

Sasuke watched as three more ANBU appeared and used shunshin to drag Orochimaru to the hokage's office. The ANBU then whispered a few words to Anko, before walking over to him.

"Sasuke Uchiha, return to your residence and remain there. Do not answer to anyone other than me or the hokage personally. One of us will contact you when you are needed. Training is cancelled for the day."

Sasuke looked at her coldly, furious that his training had been suspended. He didn't like the snake pervert, but any training would help him closer in strength to Itachi. However, she was an ANBU, and he was under no illusion that she was much stronger than him. He gave her a 'tch' and made his way home, causing Yugao Uzuki to frown under her mask.

xxxx

"Ok Sakura, the first week is up. You are pretty much up to par with your speed and strength, your chakra control is phenomenal, your reserves have more than tripled and you already have training in your elemental affinity."

Sakura beamed at the praise, feeling as though she could topple mountains with how muck Kakashi lifted her ego. He quickly brought it back down to earth. "However, your taijutsu sucks, you only really know three jutsu on top of the academy basics, you have no genjutsu training and you don't have any training in kenjutsu."

Sakura pouted, wanting Kakashi to get to the point. She couldn't defend herself from Sasuke and Naruto should they turn on her again if she didn't keep training. Although, the two had been extremely friendly, well for them anyway, to her lately.

"So we will be working on those until the last week," Kakashi stated simply.

"Erm, Kakashi-sensei, then what are we going to do in the last week?" She asked tentatively, not sure what else they _could_ do.

"Well, to make sure that no one could ever predict you movements, we, and by we I mean you, are going to invent a new jutsu using your elemental training." Sakura's eyes lit up at that, she was totally going to dominate if she had her _own_ jutsu.

"Well, what are we waiting for Kakashi-sensei? LET'S DO THIS!"

xxxx

"Hey, Shikaku!" Naruto called as he approached the training ground, which was a large area covered in an assortment of large rocks and trees. "What are you doing here?" Naruto said as he got a bit closer. Shikaku had tried to help the boy before he was attacked, but the kid wasn't a ninja and as a clan head and the jounin commander there was only so much he could do without severe political backlash.

That was why he spent as much of that week in the hospital with Naruto as possible, the kid had massive potential and he had seen the positive influence he had had on Shikamaru. He also found out that he shared some of the Nara clan's darker side; they weren't shadow users for nothing.

"I was waiting for you Naruto, I'm going to be your jounin instructor for the next week," he said in that famous drawl that belonged only to the males of the Nara clan.

"Um, Shikaku, why aren't you training Shikamaru? He is your son and all, and me, well..." Naruto said, his eyes glancing down for a second.

"Naruto, my son is a genius and knows exactly where he needs to improve and why without the need for an instructor. He also has a whole clan from which to learn. I also want to try something with you, something for which I am the only person in the village that could help you."

Naruto looked at him inquisitively, and opened his mouth to speak, but before a sound could escape his lips, he found himself frozen. He glanced down to see Shikaku's shadow attached to his own.

"Naruto, from now on you are to address me as sensei or Shikaku-sensei." Shikaku looked at Naruto pointedly, glad that he had had his morning coffee already. He had almost found it difficult to hold Naruto with his shadow, though no one actually knew what his true strength was. Shikaku knew he himself was a rival for at least one of the sannin; he was easily a kage level ninja, though only he and the hokage knew that. So for Naruto to test the strength of his shadow took a tremendous amount of force.

He let his shadow go. "Naruto, if you promise to be quiet and try to absorb what I say, I promise that by the end of the month you will be able face at least high chūnin level opponents on equal ground."

Naruto looked at him with a shine in his eyes, and sat down along with Shikaku, who proceeded to speak when it was apparent that Naruto was ready to learn.

"Ok Naruto, you know there are five elemental affinities, the same as the five great nations?" He asked, to which Naruto nodded enthusiastically. "Right, now do you know about light and shadow affinities?" The confused expression was all the confirmation he needed.

"So, every person, even civilians, from peasants to kages, has an affinity with light and shadow, which are different to the elemental affinities. Almost everyone on the planet has a perfectly even balance between shadow and light, even criminals. No one is actually sure what determines a person's light or shadow affinity, but apparently the founder of the Nara clan did."

He stopped and looked at Naruto, who gave a nod to show he was following. Despite the memory loss, no one could deny that the addition of the fox's consciousness to his own had greatly improved Naruto's intelligence.

"Ok, well the reason my clan are the only ones who can use the shadow jutsu is because our genetics have provided us with a very strong shadow affinity. Now your favourite jutsu, shadow clone jutsu, you can use so well because you have at least a minor shadow affinity and/or you have the genetics for a strong shadow affinity."

"I believe that you have a strong shadow affinity, however you will not be able to use any of our clan jutsus," Shikaku said, seeing the growing look of excitement on Naruto's face suddenly drop.

"Don't worry about it. The reason is because our affinity allows us to use shadow manipulation. I believe that you're strength lies in shadow manifestation. Even with your chakra reserves, even with your demon chakra, you shouldn't be able to create so many shadow clones. I think it takes you around two or three percent of the chakra to create clones as durable as normal compared to everyone else."

Naruto's smile was utterly infectious, the excitement seemingly creating a heat wave around him. That's when Shikaku realised that the purple cloak that Naruto had become famous for was manifesting through excitement. He would have to analyse Naruto's abilities once he found out for sure that he had strong shadow manifestation.

"Ok Naruto, do you know why shadow clones disappear after a strong hit? No? It's because they are living constructs and so the impact causes a chakra fluctuation that dispels them. Now, inanimate objects will not have that problem, so I want you to try and focus on your chakra and manipulate it the same way you do for a single clone. Shadow manifestation can be done without hand signs, which can be done with manipulation was well, but it's fairly difficult."

Once he saw that Naruto had correctly moulded the right amount of chakra, he continued. "Ok Naruto, now, instead imagining a clone, I want you to try and manifest something else. Try manifesting a chair."

Naruto released the chakra and imagined manifesting a large black armchair with complete padding (think la-z-boy). He was both surprised and delighted when said chair appeared before him. Shikaku looked at him expectantly, so he stood in front of the chair and sat down tentatively in case it dispelled. When it didn't he sank straight into the comfiest chair he had ever sat in.

"Yatta! This is great. If I had known this years ago I never would have had to grab all of that thrown out furniture at the dump." Shikaku looked at the boy, sadness filling his eyes.

"Now then Naruto, I'm going to need to know all of your abilities so I can accurately train you, and don't worry, I won't tell anyone about your abilities, not even Shikamaru, student-teacher confidentiality," Shikaku added, seeing the guarded look creep onto Naruto's face.

However, after a few minutes, Naruto told him. Shikaku was surprised to say the least.

xxxx

"Finally. What am I going to do now that the teacher you oh so wisely appointed has shown just how much of a paedophile and head case he is?" Sasuke said, staring at the hokage with thinly veiled contempt.

"Watch your tone Sasuke," Sarutobi said, but Sasuke didn't miss the hint of mirth in the old man's eyes. "Anyway, you know those two kunoichi that appeared earlier today? The one who attacked Orochimaru was Anko Mitarashi, a former student of Orochimaru's that was left for dead when she was a child. She will continue your instruction in the snake style of taijutsu."

Sasuke's eyes widened slightly, but at least he was paying attention. "The ANBU was a woman by the name of Yugao Uzuki. She is a weapons expert, and will advance your training in the sword. Meet them tomorrow at the same training ground at 7 am tomorrow."

And so, the chūnin exams loomed, and team seven trained harder than ever. Everyone would be surprised at what each of them could do, the instructors were sure of that. The legend moved forward.

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A/N: Ok I know this was a bit of a boring chapter, but I guarantee that the next chapter will have you either loving or hating me. The final round is about to begin...


	11. Chapter 11

Instinctual Release

Chapter 11

Disclaimer: Naruto is not owned by me.

A/N: Thanks to everyone for how well this is doing, so remember to follow, favourite and review! :D

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The crowd roared loudly, with individual cheers and screams easy to make out from the gathered parents, siblings and friends that were situated in the stands. The intensity rose palpably as the contestants made their way out to the middle of the large field that the stadium was built around.

Sasuke and Naruto stood side by side, smirking at each other, lapping up the praise of the crowd, while eyeing the other genin with bloodlust and vigour. Only Gaara was unaffected by the amount of killing intent that the two were leaking.

"Hn, don't fail too easily dobe, I've still got to sharpen my kunai on your spine," Sasuke said, glancing at Naruto out of the corner of his eye. The red head had once again placed his chakra blocks, so he looked normal except for the red hair that Sasuke still hadn't gotten used to.

"Don't worry, the only way I could lose to you is if I get too full from the all of the blood I plan on drinking," Naruto whipped back, both boys grinning like crazy from their shared dreams of death. Sakura edged away slowly, not sure if Naruto was joking or not.

Up in the hokage's box, Hiruzen Sarutobi stepped forward and augmented his voice with chakra so the whole stadium could hear him. "Ladies and Gentlemen. The final round of the chūnin exams is about to begin." He looked down at the assembled genin.

"I hope each and every one of you will give us an entertaining match, and at the same time prove that you are worthy of the name 'shinobi' and become chūnin!" Sarutobi nodded to Hayate as the crowd clapped, then sat back down in his chair, wishing he had a heat pad for his aching back.

Back down in the fight area, Hayate finished telling the chūnin hopefuls the rules, which were the same as at the preliminary rounds. "Ok, Sakura Haruno and Choji Akimichi, stay in the arena, everyone else go to the spectator areas where your jounin sensei are."

Sakura sized up Choji. He was larger than her as it was, and his expansion jutsu made him a lot stronger than her. Unfortunately, strength was what she specialised in with taijutsu as well, so she would have to change tactics. She was sure that he would have been working on his speed too, so that was probably out.

Using her superior intellect, she realised that she would have to outlast Choji, while simultaneously attempting to trap him or trick him in a way that severely slowed him down so that she could deliver a devastating shot with ninjutsu. In real life she would have liked to have used strategically placed explosion tags and spammed mid range ninjutsu at him from behind, but she didn't want to kill him.

Her eyes started to shine as an idea came to her. She signalled that she was ready to start, as did Choji. "Begin."

Choji immediately flew into his clan's signature technique. "Expansion Jutsu: Human Bullet Tank!" He called out and rolled towards Sakura at a speed that she was impressed with to say the least. She dodged to the right just at the right time, and flew through her hand signs as Choji turned incredibly tightly and came towards her again.

"Earth Style: Crumble," she said to herself, activating her own jutsu. She had come up with her own signature move like Kakashi promised she would, but she had enough time to develop a couple of other jutsus as well.

Choji slowed down slightly, but seeing that the jutsu did nothing other than make the floor a little dusty, continued on at full speed. Sakura dodged again, cutting it a little close and getting caught on the shoulder. She was lucky though, it didn't hurt too much and didn't interfere with her ability to fight as there was no major injury.

She flashed through her hand signs again, shouting out the name of the jutsu as Choji was about halfway to her from where he turned. "Water Style: Sludge Dungeon!" Water beneath the ground rose up and turned the dusty earth into a thick sludge. What Choji didn't know was that the first jutsu infused her chakra with the earth and caused it to become crumbly. This also allowed her to control the ground as long as she was connected to it.

That was fairly useless, but mixed with the water it became a thick sludge, hence the name. Not only did this make it hard to move for her opponent, it allowed her to manipulate the

sludge, which was like liquid and could be moulded into any shape while simultaneously hardening under concussive impacts, meaning that when it hit it was as hard as concrete. It was technically a derivative of the puppet master jutsu from Sand, but Kakashi said that anyone that could figure that out was a genius. She spared a quick glance at Shikamaru.

Choji's Human Bullet Tank jutsu unravelled as Choji was caught in the Sludge Dungeon, finding his feet stuck. He was totally preoccupied and unaware of the fist of sludge that appeared underneath him and punched him in the jaw. Several more, as well as feet and even a hammer shaped piece of sludge sprouted as well, repeatedly beating Choji to the ground.

One final sludge kick to the side of the head eventually knocked Choji out, causing Hayate to call the match and a medic, who took Choji to the medical unit for concussion. The crowd cheered loudly, causing Sakura to beam as she shunshined to the area where Kakashi, Naruto and Sasuke were waiting for her. She heard Naruto speak up as she got closer.

"Way to go Sakura! It's a shame you didn't hurt him more, I mean there wasn't even any blood, but you totally owned Choji, that jutsu was awesome," he shouted enthusiastically, confusing the other genin at how he managed to be so earnestly supportive yet sadistic and evil at the same time. Until they remembered he was half demon fox.

"Temari no Sabaku and Gin, make your way down to the arena," Hayate called, causing the crowd to cheer again. Gin sank into the ground and rose up in the fight area slowly, impressing the crowd. He was shown up however; when Temari proceeded to fly, actually _fly, _into the arena on a large fan, with a gust of wind to kick up the dust on the ground as she landed.

When Hayate began the match, Temari immediately unfurled her fan and swung it, causing a powerful wind to whip towards Gin, who was thrown back towards the wall by the force of the wind. He recovered quickly and began hand signs before Temari could swing her fan again.

With a smile, he slammed his hands on the ground. "Earth Style: Stone Golem!" A large pillar of Earth rose out of the ground, and chunks of it dropped away to reveal an eight foot tall, craggy humanoid. The hokage and several jounin narrowed their eyes, remembering the jounin level technique from the third Great War, wondering how and why a genin knew the technique.

Temari smirked, knowing exactly how to defeat the jutsu just from observation. The height of the golem was to deter anyone from trying to attack from above, as they were designed to both withstand and dish out punishment from the front.

Temari threw her fan in the air and did some hand signs, then jumped up to the fan, grabbing it expertly and spinning in the air. She brought the fan round and called out her technique, an original jutsu of her own.

"Wind style: Crater." Everyone's eyebrows knitted together in confusion over the name of the jutsu, as such a name would typically be associated with an earth jutsu. The reason for the name became apparent when a large crater formed where the golem had once been, a pinpoint blast of 'heavy wind' that completely crushed and obliterated the golem.

Hayate called the match as Temari floated down to the ground on her fan. "What are you talking about I didn't even hit him. How could I have won?" She questioned, but Hayate just smirked at her.

"I think you put a bit too much chakra into it. The blast wave from your technique slammed him against the wall, knocking him out. Look, you can see him over there, he's out cold," Hayate said cheerfully, pleasantly surprised at the strength of the girl.

The crowd suddenly hushed as Hayate called out the next match, "Sasuke Uchiha and Kurotsuchi, you're up next. Make your way down here." This was what the crowd had truly been waiting for. They were desperate to see the famed 'last Uchiha' fight, and they also wanted to see the tsuchikage's granddaughter get beaten into the ground.

Kakashi was watching Sasuke unblinkingly. The moment it looked like the boy would try and kill her, which he was sure would happen, he would step in and save the girl. He glanced at her sensei, a greasy man with a straggly beard and grimy black hair. The man matched the description that team seven gave, but with only their word, and Naruto/the fox's at that, there was nothing they could do to the man. However, Kakashi knew he would not protect his students, so Kakashi would do it instead.

Many of the other jounin sensei, as well as a couple of others, were thinking exactly the same thing.

Sasuke and Kurotsuchi eventually made it down to the arena, and Kurotsuchi glanced around the stadium. She blushed brightly when she noticed Kankuro winking and waving at her. He quickly froze though when his brother grabbed his arm and twisted sharply, spraining Kankuro's wrist. Kurotsuchi looked away, forcing herself to focus on the number one genin of Konoha.

"Begin!"

Sasuke just stood there smirking, waiting for Kurotsuchi to make the first move. When she didn't move he became impatient, and pulled out some shuriken, launching them towards her almost faster than she could see.

"Earth Style: Mud Wall!" She shouted, stopping the shuriken that were aimed straight at her. She didn't see the second brace of shuriken that Sasuke threw above her, and the ones he threw at them to divert them down on top of her.

She rolled back out of the way as the first shuriken from above struck the ground mere inches away from her, but one caused a fairly deep laceration in her shoulder. It wasn't deep enough to do any real damage, but that didn't mean it wasn't painful.

She charged towards Sasuke, who got into a stance she didn't recognise, ready for the taijutsu spar. Sasuke however did recognise the stance that she was setting herself up for, his Sharingan had memorised it when the foreign shinobi in the forest nearly killed his friends.

When she reached, she planted herself solidly and drove a fist upwards at Sasuke's stomach. He smiled as he twisted, almost unnaturally, out of the way, and she was surprised when Sasuke appeared to nearly dislocate his shoulder to drive his palm upwards into her jaw, lightly stunning her.

He turned round and moved in as Kurotsuchi stumbled, and coiled his muscles like Anko had taught him to. The Snake Mistress' taijutsu was actually different to Orochimaru's, an improvement in Sasuke's opinion, but being a sannin the snake paedophile had no need to perfect the taijutsu style when he had so many ninjutsu to learn.

He pumped chakra into his legs, and sprung upward, driving both of his knees into Kurotsuchi's stomach. He landed and moved back, watching as Kurotsuchi dry heaved and gasped for air on all fours, giving her time to recover, sure that he could win.

Kurotsuchi stood up a little shakily, but she was ready to fight, and the look she gave him caused Sasuke to inadvertently activate his Sharingan. He saw how she twitched just before she ran towards him, and pulled out his tanto, a gift from his other teacher Yugao, as Kurotsuchi drew her short sword.

They charged at each other and began a furious and deadly dance of blades that left sparks flying and every non-kenjutsu specialist awestruck. As it was Hayate was watching the clash of blades with interest, easily recognising the influence of his wife's style in Sasuke's, who was slowly but surely overpowering Kurotsuchi, though you wouldn't be able to tell unless you were specifically trained in swordplay.

With an almost impossible dodge using the snake style and a very risky backhanded swipe, Sasuke disarmed his opponent. He grinned victoriously, and brought his blade up to her neck, a small trail of her blood running its way down the sword from the shallow cut he placed dangerously close to her jugular.

Several of the Konoha jounin tensed, Kakashi, Asuma, Kurenai and Gai were almost about to jump in and save the girl. "I yield," she said, looking at Sasuke defiantly, waiting for Hayate to call the match.

"Winner: Sasuke Uchiha, return to your waiting areas, neither of you needs medical attention," he said, looking at Sasuke pointedly, daring him to not put the sword down. To his, everyone else's, and especially Naruto's surprise, he complied without a word, sheathing his sword and using a shunshin to travel over to Naruto, who immediately asked him why he hadn't tried to finish it. All he got was a 'hn' in response.

At the call of his name he hurried down into the arena, forgetting that his opponent was the slowest and laziest person to have ever lived. Sasuke brushing him off had been extremely annoying, despite the fact that he was used to the emo's mood swings by now, and the wait for Shikamaru made him even more pissed off.

Kakashi saw through Sasuke's ploy immediately; he was deliberately riling Naruto up so that the boy would lose his head and try and kill his opponent. Kakashi was further sickened by the boy, almost denying the idea that a leaf shinobi could want to kill his comrades. He knew that feeling, and then Obito had actually gone and died. Maybe that's what Sasuke needed, for someone close to him to die. Maybe Naruto. It would certainly make Kakashi feel better.

But the boys were technically leaf shinobi, and he would never hurt or kill a fellow leaf shinobi. He would just wait until they became missing-nin like he knew they would.

Shikamaru eventually made his way into position in the arena, smirking ever so slightly at Naruto, who visibly vibrating with the effort of standing still for a couple of minutes when he was anticipating a fight. Oh yes, Shikamaru knew exactly how to throw Naruto off his game. He just hoped it was enough.

From the hints he had gained from the rest of the clan who had been teaching him while his father taught Naruto, the half demon was extremely fast, and was too strong to be shadow possessed. As a result, he had spent a lot of time over the month honing his skills in other areas, deciding that to rely on his shadow possession like he originally planned would practically be a death sentence.

He knew Naruto liked him and viewed him as a good friend, but with the amount of killing intent Naruto was releasing that probably wouldn't mean a thing to him unless he stopped to think about it, which wasn't very likely. His best bet was to wear Naruto down by making him exhaust his chakra.

He saw how chakra draining Naruto's super speed was, and planned in making him use it. He checked his pouch discreetly for the kunai and exploding tags he had.

"Begin!"

As expected, Naruto appeared next to him before he could even blink. He saw Naruto's fist coming towards his face, and unable to avoid it, flew backwards as the fist smashed into his cheek. He reckoned his cheek may have been cracked, so he couldn't be hit by another punch like that. Naruto smirked, glad that his strength training had been productive.

What no one noticed was the exploding tag that Shikamaru had discreetly placed on Naruto's leg. He didn't know if that would be effective or not, so he had altered it slightly to be more incendiary than concussive. Being the genius that he was, he knew more than a little on sealing, though he always studied in secret. It was his most guarded combat secret, and he only used exploding and sealing tags in public, saving his true sealing talents for when he truly needed them.

Naruto's grin faded as he felt the tag on his leg ignite, but was confused when it didn't blow his leg off, he just stared as the lower half of his leg caught fire. Shikamaru watched intently, and quickly drew up another plan seeing that Naruto was feeling no pain from the fire on his leg.

Naruto was practically immune to fire now, but he hadn't wanted to show that off. He and Shikaku had found that his purple cloak wasn't just chakra radiating from his body, it was actually setting him on fire, and so they deduced that he was immune to fire. He could still feel heat, but it didn't bother him as much. He quickly patted the fire out with his hands, making a show of being in pain, but a few people say through the guise.

Shikamaru pulled out his readied exploding kunai, and proceeded to launch them at Naruto for as long as possible. After ten minutes of watching the Nara throw them while Naruto used his teleportation to dodge, everyone in the stadium was getting bored.

Naruto knew that Shikamaru would be a difficult opponent, but he had counted on him only training in his family jutsu, if he bothered to train at all. Naruto knew how to counter it, having trained with Shikaku, the greatest shadow manipulator since the founder of the clan. He didn't want to have to resort to his shadow manifestation with Shikamaru, but it couldn't be avoided.

"Shadow Style: Samurai's Grave." First Shikamaru's eyes widened at the fact that Naruto could use Shadow Style, his clan's jutsu. They widened further when blades _made of shadows_ suddenly started randomly sprouting out of the ground. Then he ran. Fast.

Naruto watched as his blades sprang up out of the ground like a train of death, and then pouted as Shikamaru ran up the wall of the stadium. Those were one his weakest shadow jutsus, and weren't very chakra intensive, so he could spam them as much as he wanted from wherever he wanted. He channelled chakra into his eyes and then ran over to Shikamaru, ending the time stop when he was only a meter away.

However, he felt himself stop, and cursed seeing Shikamaru's smirk, "Shadow Possession Complete." Naruto didn't know what to do, as he didn't believe he could escape the jutsu having only been subjected to Shikaku's, which was the most powerful in the clan and could only just hold him.

He fell off of the wall when he struggled, feeling almost no resistance like he expected, and landed with a loud thud. Shikamaru then jumped off of the wall and landed next to him before he could get up.

"I forfeit," Shikamaru said to Hayate as he started walking back to the spectator's area. Naruto began spluttering and protesting to Shikamaru, but reigned in his desire to kill the boy. He was turning over a new leaf, he wasn't the idiot that was Naruto Uzumaki and he wasn't the violent rage that was the nine tails. No, he was forging his own path.

Shikamaru was one of the few people he considered his friend. However, he wouldn't protect his friends no matter what, not like Naruto would. He wouldn't kill anyone who tried to get close to him, like the nine tails would. He would decimate anyone who tried to hurt those he considered friends. It was a subtle difference, many would say they were the same thing, but to him, violence certainly could be the answer. And there was always fun to be had in killing people.

"Winner: Naruto Uzumaki. Hinata Hyuuga and Zaku ma-" he was suddenly cut off as a swirl of sand appeared in front of him. The red headed genin from Sand with the kanji for love tattooed onto his forehead was radiating killing intent and frustration.

"Let me fight now or I will begin to kill people."

"Hey what do you think you're doing, your fight isn't up yet kid, now get back to your area!"

At that several things happened. Gaara suddenly grabbed his head and sprinted off out of the stadium. Almost all of the audience was caught in a sleeping genjutsu. The kazekage suddenly keeled over and began wheezing. Four Sound ninja caught Sarutobi in a barrier jutsu, and then an ANBU imposter dropped enough paper bombs to level a small village into it.

And around 1,500 Sound nin and 400 Rock nin penetrated the walls of Konoha, and the Rock-Sound invasion began.

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A/N: I know the abrupt ending may seem strange, but I reckon in a world of ninja things really could kick off that fast, so the suddenness reflects that, just in case anyone was wondering. And I know I promised that something BIG would happen this chapter, but I was having too much fun writing the fights and showing off everyone's training. Therefore, I absolutely promise that something amazing will happen next chapter. :D


	12. Chapter 12

Instinctual Release

Chapter 12

Disclaimer: Naruto is not owned by me.

A/N: Ok I got a review about the discrepancy with Naruto knowing how to counter the shadow possession. I screwed up slightly there, it was supposed to be Naruto planning on Shikamaru thinking that he had a counter to the shadow possession, so sorry if that confused anyone.

As for Naruto seeming weak and the fight seeming to be a bit of a loss on his part, Shikamaru is currently one of the few people he doesn't want to kill, as well as wanting to keep some of his techniques secret, plus a lot of what he knows being very overpowered, to the point it would Shikamaru and people in the crowd. Also he has only really had a month of good training, so overall his taijutsu is below average, his ninjutsu is ok now but you can't master a style in a month even with shadow clones. He has no genjutsu or kenjutsu skills either, all he has is strength, speed and an insane level of chakra, so in a fight against a friend as smart as Shikamaru he is at a disadvantage. The only reason he beat Kakashi was because he had help from Sasuke, and the both of them were well above Kakashi's expectations, taking him by surprise.

Shikamaru being able to throw explosive kunai for ten minutes? Naruto having to teleport just to dodge explosion? I did mention Shikamaru's skills in sealing arts, which I think are perfect for him by the way. His skill easily exceeds Tenten's, and she can store a damn lot of weapons (like 3 episodes worth I think), so he can store more and he can make his own, much more powerful explosions. I thought that was obvious from the mention of his skill in fuuinjutsu, but I'm sorry that it wasn't. As for Naruto having to dodge the explosion with teleportation, he is damn fast, but he can't outrun an explosion without his teleportation, and Shikamaru is throwing a lot of them at him.

Also, the only reason Shikamaru caught Naruto in the shadow possession was because he was surprised by it having not seen it being gotten ready when he teleported, but it did only hold him for a moment, and broke the moment he moved with a bit of force.

There, I think that's all issues addressed, sorry to the people who pointed these things out, I promise to be more vigilant in my writing so that there aren't any more discrepancies.

So, on with the story...

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Gaara stopped in a clearing in the forest and clutched at his head, as the demon sealed within him howled within his mind, burning through his thoughts and demanding blood, the urge to kill getting stronger by the minute.

This feeling doubled when a red-headed and orange clad ninja landed in the clearing behind him, followed shortly after by the dark haired one with the red eyes. His ability to repress Shukaku's bloodlust overtook him, and he turned to engage the enemy whose blood smelled so sweet, and yet so familiar.

xxxx

Chaos reigned throughout the village of Konoha, with Rock and Sound shinobi attacking everywhere they could, indiscriminately killing shinobi and civilians alike. The Leaf Shinobi despaired when a gigantic three headed snake appeared on the walls, and began to tear them down.

Back in the stadium, the situation was much worse. Sound-nin posing as civilians and even ANBU had been planted all over the stadium, and it was all the jounin and genin present and awake could do to stop them while simultaneously protecting the civilians. A few ANBU had managed to make it to the barrier that was put up around the hokage. Two of them had grabbed the kazekage and proceeded to take him to the hospital.

He had been poisoned by a senbon in his back, and needed medical treatment right away. Two Sand jounin joined them, the kazekage's personal guard, and they rushed to the hospital. With any luck, the man would make it out of the horror of the invasion alive.

xxxx

Sarutobi undid the earth jutsu that had protected him from the blast and stared at the two shinobi that had entered the trap with him. One was the supposed genin Kabuto Yakushi, who was now sporting a Sound hitai-ite, and he could see the summoning seals for the snakes on his arms.

The other man was an unknown to Sarutobi, but the hokage immediately identified him as the greater threat. He wore a Rock hitai-ite, and looked like the description given of team seven's attacker.

He didn't know if diplomacy would work on these two, but if he could find out what they wanted and live through this ordeal, then he would count himself lucky. Perhaps even lucky enough to retire again.

"Who are you two and what do you want?" The hokage asked, hoping to open up a dialogue, as the barrier could only be held up as long as the ones casting it could supply it chakra, four Sound shinobi within their own barriers. To his surprise, he actually got a response from Kabuto. A very angry response.

"You bastard! You took Lord Orochimaru away from me, he was all I had left. I'm carrying out the invasion that he couldn't since you took him from me!" Kabuto shouted, causing the hokage to wince at the mention of his former pupil. He turned to the other man without commenting, waiting for his response.

"Well, _Lord_ hokage I'm afraid I can't exactly just let you get away with living peacefully and in prosperity while my own people are still recovering from the Third Great Shinobi War. What better way to destroy Konoha than by releasing the demon within THE SON OF THE FOURTH HOKAGE!" Sarutobi gasped, that knowledge was known only to him, Jiraiya, Naruto and his classmates, no one else could possibly know that. The man sneered as he looked at the expression on the hokage's face.

"The Hidden Rock sends their regards..." he said, and then the man wavered out of existence, showing himself to be a simple clone. Kabuto turned to look at the spot where the man had disappeared, and Sarutobi noticed a hint of fear pass through Kabuto's eyes. The boy was a student of Orochimaru's, a fantastic spy, and would one day be able to fight on par with his master. However, that was the future, and now he was face to face with The God of Shinobi, The Professor, The Hokage of the Village Hidden in the Leaves.

No force could stop Sarutobi from taking revenge on the man who had instigated the invasion of his home, and was the absolute cause of the deaths of so many.

xxxx

Sasuke watched as Gaara turned to him and Naruto, with his teeth bared in a manic grin and his eyes nearly bulging out of his head they were so wide. Sand swirled around him violently, a miniature sandstorm stripping the ground around Gaara of any vegetation.

"Sand Coffin" Echoed through the woods, and suddenly Gaara's sand was rushing towards him and Naruto. They dodged in opposite directions, watching as some of the sand returned to its master and began to stick to him, causing his left arm to turn into a giant sand arm with blue tattoos swirling up it. They both noticed the very large and uninviting claws adorning the end of the sand limb.

Sasuke threw out a fire jutsu, causing Gaara's attention to focus on him. "Sand Shuriken." Dozens of the deadly projectiles were suddenly flying towards him extremely fast, and had he not had his Sharingan activated, they might have hit him. However, combined with the snake style of taijutsu that Anko had taught him, there wasn't much that he couldn't dodge anymore.

Naruto hung back as Gaara's attention was focused solely on Sasuke, and splitting his attention between the two of them may work on normal enemies, but this was a deranged and powerful foreign shinobi with powers over the sand and a killing intent to rival his own. Naruto suspected that Gaara housed his insane little brother, Shukaku the one tail, and with no longer being able to grow to full size, it would not be wise to antagonise Gaara with more than one opponent when he could release Shukaku.

He jumped back onto another branch as some of Gaara's shuriken flew towards him, he was throwing them around furiously as Sasuke dodged them all, slowly getting closer and closer. As he landed he felt a presence next to him, and turned to see that Rock-nin standing next to him. "Shiozuketsuchi, at your service," he said with a grin.

Naruto jumped back as an explosion rocked the tree he had been standing on, but was still blown back some distance away, out of sight even, from the fight between Sasuke and Gaara. He righted himself and stood up to face his enemy. Someone attacks his friends, he will kill them. They attack him, and they will wish for death.

xxxx

"Die, die, die, die, die, DIE!" Gaara was becoming increasingly frantic as all of his attacks missed. Sasuke had gotten close a couple of times and hit Gaara with a couple of fireball jutsus, and he had slashed off the tail once Gaara had been fully engulfed by his sand. However, he seemed unstoppable.

Gaara gave off a massive scream of rage and suddenly his sand began to multiply, building up and up until it towered over the tree tops, where it took on the form of a raccoon with blue tattoos swirling across its body. The _thing_ roared, and a large bullet of air ripped through the trees right next to him.

One hit from one of them and he would be dead.

All Sasuke could do was assume that due to the creature being made of sand it would be weak to lightning nature chakra, which Anko had helped him find out once he became proficient in the snake style.

xxxx

"_Oi, brat, channel some chakra into this piece of paper," Anko shouted at him, interrupting his kunai and shuriken throwing drills. He wandered over and took the piece of paper, inspecting it slowly. _

"_What, exactly, is this supposed to help me with?" He inquired, unable to keep the sarcastic tone out of his voice. _

"_Hey, listen here shithead that piece of fucking paper will tell you your goddamn chakra nature, you get me?" She said, glaring at Sasuke for daring to question her. He complied with her original instruction after nodding, and channelled said chakra into the piece of paper. It crumpled instantly, and then rolled up into a ball and crumpled further until it would be near impossible to pry it open._

"_Oh my fucking god!" Anko shouted, jumping up and down in glee. Sasuke eyed her warily, used to her schizophrenic outbursts, but never one so happy. After a few minutes of her acting like a mental patient, he decided to interrupt her. _

"_Hey, what the hell does this mean?"_

_She stopped and looked at him, massive grin spread across her face. "You, my dear little brat, have an absolute lighting nature." He stared at her. He knew about chakra natures and that jounin often had two, and that kekkai genkai were based on having multiple chakra natures. However, he hadn't known how to test for them, and he certainly didn't know what an 'absolute' chakra nature was. He quickly voiced his question._

"_An absolute nature brat, is where the chakra cost becomes so minimal for one nature that the jutsu for that nature aren't just easier to perform, as with normal natures, but they also become many times more powerful, to the point that they can mimic the forces of nature once the shinobi is powerful enough."_

_Sasuke stared at her transfixed, ecstatic at how naturally powerful he was. Then he did something he never thought he would do. He jumped up in the air and whooped. Both he and Anko agreed never to tell anyone about it. _

_New ideas had flooded into his head. To mimic a force of nature was a short term goal, one that he would definitely aim for and experiment with._

xxxx

So that was what he was attempting now, though he knew that he would never manage it on his own. He sprinted around the giant sand raccoon demon, blowing fire jutsu after fire jutsu, burning the trees around him.

Gaara spotted Sasuke from the top of the demon's head. He swiped a massive paw at the area where Sasuke was, inadvertently making the fire jutsu stronger with the wind that accompanied his swipe.

This continued on for several minutes, Sasuke dodging paws, tail swipes, air bullets and giant sand shurikens. Eventually, Sasuke's dark clouds were beginning to appear above Gaara's giant form, just as he planned. Now all he had to do was wait for it to become big enough.

He jumped to the next tree, but had been paying too much attention to the cloud. Gaara's massive paw slammed into his side and the tree he was standing on, taking him down with it and stunning him as he slammed into the ground.

Sasuke got up and tried to dash to the underside of the demon, but a falling branch caught him on the shoulder. It caused him to dodge the swipe of a paw, but it hurt a lot more than it should of, to the point that he felt like passing out from the pain, but he got back up and continued running underneath Gaara as fast as he could. He couldn't wait any longer or he'd die.

He made it directly underneath Gaara's form, and went through hand signs. They were slower than usual, the injury to his shoulder making any movement in his right arm unnecessarily painful. He finished the hand signs and pulled out his sword.

Gaara had finally noticed where he was, and a spear of sand shot down towards him as he pulled his sword up. The spike travelled towards him at a frightening pace, and he plunged his sword into the ground just before the spike impaled him through the top of the head.

"Lightning Style: Lightning Rod Disaster!"

A massive arc of lighting dropped from the sky at a pace faster than even a Sharingan could follow, searing the very air, hot enough to fuse atoms. It bolted through the sand demon and hit the sword that Sasuke had plunged into the ground.

The torso of the sand demon exploded in a shower of sand and shards of glass, a sharp ozone smell permeating the air. Flashes of white and blue blinded Sasuke, and he felt a tremor from what he could only assume was what was left of Gaara falling to the floor.

His sight returned a moment later, to see the head of the demon with Gaara poking out of the top directly in front of him. He also noticed the sand slowly making its way back towards the giant demon. He got up and pulled his sword out of the ground, trudging towards Gaara, who was barely conscious.

He lifted the sword up and went to plunge the sword into Gaara's heart, but stumbled slightly from the effects of the chakra drain from using his lightning rod technique. The sword went through the right side of Gaara's chest, a spray of blood painting the ground behind the red head.

The sand fell apart and coalesced back into Gaara's gourd, and the boy fell on the floor unconscious. Sasuke watched the blood slowly pool around Gaara, then saw some other blood mix with the pool that was Gaara's. He looked down to see a pool of his own blood, then looked at his shoulder. It was torn to shreds, and he had three giant claw marks going from his shoulder to just above his stomach.

He fell to his knees, his head swimming, and then passed out next Gaara.

xxxx

Naruto stared at Shiozuketsuchi, anger brimming within him. He knew there was no way he could fight a jounin unless he pulled out all of the stops, and he doubted this guy was a regular jounin. He released his chakra blocks and felt himself grow a few inches taller, and he grew broader as well, ripping his shirt and revealing that the seal had reappeared on his stomach, only now the swirl was gone and replaced by a sold black blotch, with the outer structures of the seal glowing a dull red.

Shiozuketsuchi sprinted towards him, hand signs flashing faster than even his altered eyes could follow. He reckoned that his vision wasn't as good as it would be if he had the Sharingan, but then the Sharingan couldn't momentarily stop time.

He channelled chakra to his eyes and prepared to attack, but Shiozuketsuchi finished his signs and activated his jutsu. "Earth Style: Concussion," he shouted, smirking all the while. A shockwave spread out from his position, and when it hit Naruto's position, it blasted upward. It was aptly named.

Naruto flew upward from the shockwave, blood pouring out of his ears. He fell to the ground, but before he could hit said ground, he was punched square in the stomach, and flew back and struck a tree.

He got up and glared at Shiozuketsuchi. Naruto activated his teleportation and punched Shiozuketsuchi directly in the face in anger, no strategy behind the hit. He continued to hit the man before he had a chance to recover, using his fists, knees, elbows, legs, even his head.

He jumped back when he felt himself starting to get out of breath from the unrestrained attack. Naruto was surprised however, when even bloody and bruising Shiozuketsuchi just brushed off his attacks. Naruto's physical strength was not to be laughed, so he was shocked that the Rock-nin was still breathing. His resolve strengthened.

Naruto jumped back as his enemy performed more hand signs. He saw a shadow and looked up to see a large chunk of earth hanging directly over him. He looked back to see Shiozuketsuchi finishing more hand signs, and his eyes widened at what he suspected was to come.

"Earth Style: Stampede."

The concussion blast hit him from below again, and then from above when he hit the chunk of earth hanging over his head, and then again from below, and again from above. It seemed to go on forever, until he finally hit the ground and didn't get blasted back up again. Naruto was bleeding from his eyes, ears, mouth and nose, he was bruised all over and he was in a lot of pain.

This man was going to die.

Shiozuketsuchi had run in with a kunai when he saw Naruto getting up. That jutsu normally finished most opponents, but then again Naruto wasn't most opponents.

Just when he was about to attack, Naruto kicked out, sending him flying backwards like a rag doll. "You little punk, you think you're going to get away with that?" He shouted at Naruto, who was glaring at him.

"Get away with what? I'm only just getting serious," Naruto said with a grin, despite the amount of pain that jutsu had caused. But it was only pain, nothing had stopped working, and the pain itself had already dulled courtesy of his healing factor due to having half demon chakra.

Naruto flashed though some hand signs, then shouted out the name of one his newest jutsu, thanks to Shikaku. "Shadow Style: Whirlwind Lotus!" Suddenly, thousands of tiny shadows started whipping around Shiozuketsuchi, slashing him from every direction, causing a decent amount of blood loss. But he wasn't the Tsuchikage's son and right hand man for nothing.

"Earth Style: Pillar Pulse." He shot upwards on a pillar of stone, and one of the shockwaves he was so fond of pulsed from the pillar, scattering the shadows dancing around him and ending the jutsu.

Naruto rand forward and punched the man when he landed, but his hand went right through his stomach. The figure blurred and he became an earth clone. Too late Naruto realised what had happened, when he felt something hot pierce his belly. He looked down to see a sword sticking out of his stomach, blood pouring out him.

Shiozuketsuchi smirked and pulled the blade out, then turned and began walking away, thinking the fight over. He stopped when he heard a roar.

Naruto hadn't fallen over. Instead, he's felt rage, rage so strong he could barely contain it. A new memory came to him, this time from his fox half. The last time he had been this angry was when his father had died. His father. The Sage of the Six Paths. He couldn't think about that now. His rage doubled.

He turned with a roar to see Shiozuketsuchi staring at him wide-eyed. He looked down to see his stomach already healing, steam coming from the wound as he regenerated. He felt himself instinctually flashing through hand signs he didn't remember learning, and felt the chakra being moulded within him without his control. He spoke the name of the jutsu.

"Shadow God Style: Blade Of The Underworld!"

Both Naruto and Shiozuketsuchi stared as a blade nearly twice the height of Shukaku form, which they had seen fall just moments ago, appeared above them. It didn't even resemble a sword, just a massive mass of swirling darkness in the general shape of a blade. Naruto swung his arm down, and the destruction was beyond anything he had ever seen.

The blade struck Shiozuketsuchi, and continued into the ground. A thin crevice that travelled further than Naruto could even see had split the ground, but when the blade had finished and dispersed, they were standing in a crater around a quarter of a mile in radius. He looked at Shiozuketsuchi, who was wide-eyed, but still had that annoying smirk on his face. However, it was Naruto's turn to smile, as Shiozuketsuchi fell over on to his side.

And then the other half of him fell onto its side.

xxxx

Kabuto was definitely worthy of being Orochimaru's student. He was extremely slippery, and avoided attacks like a snake, just like his master. His chakra scalpels were incredibly dangerous, and had nearly gotten him on more than one occasion. His snake summons, while smaller, were just as lethal as his former student's as well.

But Sarutobi had left his mark. Kabuto's left arm had been crushed and then ripped off by his summon, Enma. The king of the monkeys stood next to him now, glaring at Orochimaru's student.

"As fun as this has been lord hokage, I'm afraid I have other duties to attend to," Kabuto said sweetly, the sarcasm dripping from his voice. "Lower it," he shouted, and then he sprinted away along with the four shinobi who had been powering the barrier.

The two ANBU left who hadn't been forced to fight within the stadium rushed to the hokage's side, who had collapsed the moment Kabuto had left, dispelling Enma. They checked his pulse, which was erratic and beginning to fail. It was lucky the fight had ended when it did, or the hokage may not have gotten the medical attention in time. He was taken to hospital in record time, thanks to one of the ANBU in question being Yugao.

xxxx

Orochimaru was both very happy and extremely annoyed. His student Kabuto had collected him after going toe to toe with Sarutobi and living, but the fact that he had to be collected left a bitter taste in his mouth. He would remove this seal that cut off his chakra if it was the last thing he did.

If he had to, he would cut it off of himself, and he knew just who could perform such an operation while keeping him alive. Now all he had to do is convince her.

xxxx

Two weeks. That's how long it took for the hokage of Konoha to wake up from the coma he fell into after what was revealed to be a heart attack. The doctor's said it had started in the middle of the fight, and were astounded that he had lived, let alone continued to fight.

Jiraiya hadn't left his side once. There had been bad blood between them for some time now, but when it came down to it he cared for his sensei too much to hold a grudge. Now he was preparing to leave the village to find Tsunade, as per Sarutobi's request. However, he wasn't going to take Naruto like the old man wanted him to.

He had considered it briefly, the kid had been out of the hospital for a week already, after collapsing from chakra exhaustion. The destruction left by whatever jutsu he had used was landscape changing, but Jiraiya was still flummoxed as to what technique demanded enough chakra to exhaust the nine tails.

He paused, reconsidering whether to take Naruto or not. He knew Kakashi despised the boy, but the old man had love in his heart for the boy even though he actually _was _the demon itself now. But Sarutobi said the nine-tailed fox lost even more than Konoha did that day.

He turned around to collect Naruto. The pain of losing Minato was still strong, and he didn't know if he could handle not abusing Naruto for who and what he was, but he would never know if he never tried. Although he would probably have to take Sasuke with him too, seeing as those two were practically joined at the hip.

Kakashi would be happy though. At least when he got out of the hospital. Which wasn't going to be for at least a month.

xxxx

The kazekage sat up in his bed, glad that he had held on to the alliance with the Leaf, despite his advisors telling him not to. He had asked to have the poison used on him sent to the Sand, as any poison that could affect him was one to be reckoned with, on par with Sasori himself.

He turned to look at his son. _His son._ He hadn't considered Gaara a son to him for many years now, ever since that first assassination attempt he had ordered. But for some reason seeing Gaara lying in the hospital bed next to him, bandages covering every inch of his body, especially his chest, made him feel a small stab of pain.

He had never considered that killing the weapon would also cause his son to die. He hadn't known what to feel when told that Gaara had run away when his bloodlust had begun to take over, as the only explanation was so he didn't hurt anyone.

The kazekage was going to have a very long talk that was a long time coming when they got back to the Sand.

xxxx

Aaaaaaaand that's a wrap. Feel free to review or PM with constructive criticism, and remember to follow and favourite. Till next time folks :D


	13. Chapter 13

Instinctual Release

Chapter 13

A/N: If you like OC crossworld stories feel free to check out my other story **The Time For Change** :D

Disclaimer: Naruto is not owned by me.

xxxx

Naruto was annoying. More of his original personality had been retained than Jiraiya first thought possible, until he considered that Naruto's personality was almost identical to his mother's so it really shouldn't have come as a surprise. That woman was as stubborn as they come, so it followed that Naruto would inherit that trait.

Despite that, Jiraiya was grateful. Naruto's constant whining kept his mind off of noticing that he looked _so much_ like his father, if he had acted anything like the calm and collected boy Jiraiya once knew, he didn't know if he'd be able to handle it.

As it was Jiraiya found himself once again shouting at the child that had ruined his peeping, attracting the attention of every woman in a five mile vicinity in the process. His one saving grace was that he hadn't had to bring Sasuke along, as the Uchiha brat decided to stay and train with Anko and Yugao some more.

Not that she would have gone, but Sakura was too busy bugging the hospital staff to let her help Kakashi, who had exhausted himself using the Sharingan and been wounded fighting a jounin from Sound. Although not before he and Gai together had taken out nearly every ANBU and jounin level enemy that had infiltrated the stadium pretty much single handedly, while the rest of the jounin and genin present had left to go help out in the village or had been pinned down by powerful opponents in the stadium.

Jiraiya was broken out of thinking about the highly dysfunctional team seven at the sound of a loud shout, followed by an orange and red blur that had started jumping up and down in front of him.

Naruto knew he was acting inappropriately for the strongest of the tailed beasts, but he couldn't help himself as his human half had greater precedence over his emotions and thoughts while out of combat and the fox half of his mind had greater influence over them while in battle. However, there were times when he would snap at people violently out of battle, or he would do something stupid in the middle of a fight.

It happened less over time as his two halves balanced each other out, but it was a slow process. He had visited his mind several times, and every time he did the images of his human and fox halves in the giant crystal behind the gate became more blurred and part of one another. The first time his mind had changed to what it was now, they were joined by the forearms, but now his halves had melded enough that the two images were almost touching chest to chest, and the arms and legs had all become one. It was freaky and fascinating at the same time.

Anyway, the reason Naruto had started shouting was because they had finally reached the next village, and both of them could use a bath. They made their way into the town, trying to find a hotel or hostel where they could stay for a few days.

On the way they were accosted, yes _accosted_ by a young woman who for whatever reason thought Jiraiya was Mr. Universe or something. It was just at that moment however, that Naruto's human side got the better of him and he rushed toward a ramen stand a few feet away, releasing a small blast of chakra in his excitement.

Which broke the genjutsu on the woman. Which resulted in Jiraiya getting slapped. Which resulted in two figures in black cloaks with red cloud patterns having to rethink their plans.

xxxx

Naruto sat in his room bored. He was irritated and was having trouble entertaining himself without Sasuke's banter. The pervert had left him, having taken his wallet, which he was going to pay for in some severe way to be sure.

His ears picked up footsteps, so light they could only be that of a shinobi. Naruto removed the chakra blocks to his eyes and channelled some chakra to them, enough to stop time for about thirty seconds. Releasing the chakra, he got up and opened the door, poking his head out of the door.

The two people there made him freeze, a man that was bordering on seven feet tall with blue skin, beady eyes, gills on his face and a sword longer than Naruto was tall. The other man was much more frightening. An Uchiha, judging by the Sharingan on his eyes, plus he looked a lot like an older Sasuke, with lines down his face and his long hair in a ponytail. They were both wearing black cloaks adorned with red clouds.

Having been transfixed by the sight of them, he didn't realise he had used up his time stop, and noticed the surprise that registered on both of their faces as to them he just appeared in the doorway without warning. Itachi was surprised he didn't even sense the movement.

However, he was more surprised when he saw Naruto's eyes, a shining violet with dark purple lightning radiating out from the pupil. This had not been in the report on the nine tails jinchuriki's abilities, as after the assassination attempt had failed Rock had cut off all ties with the akatsuki.

As reality caught up to him, Itachi's scent filled his senses, infuriating the red head. The smell was uncomfortably familiar, as the same memory flooded his mind as it had once before. This was the smell of the man who had held him down while Shiozuketsuchi had attempted to kill him.

"Who the hell are you?" Naruto shouted at them, alerting them to the fact that he was hostile, prompting Itachi to note that Naruto probably had some recollection of the night of the attack. Having no information on the brat past his survival of the assassination, both Itachi and Kisame were painfully unaware of just how much had happened to Naruto in the short time since he became a genin.

"You may call me Kisame Hoshigaki, and short and stoic over here is Itachi Uchiha," the man named Kisame joked, as though they weren't facing the strongest of the tailed beasts. A small flash of anger passed though Itachi's eyes, unnoticeable to all but those who knew or were of especially keen eyesight. Kisame and Naruto fell into those two categories respectively.

"Naruto Uzumaki, some recognition passed through your eyes, so I can only assume you know my brother?" It was phrased as a question, but it was obvious that Itachi wanted to know.

"Wait you're Sasuke's brother? You must be who he wants to kill! Great!" Both Kisame and Itachi look confused at his final outburst, though Itachi could guess why. "Now me and Sasuke have a common goal," Naruto said menacingly.

His eyes glowed slightly as he channelled chakra into them, then the next thing Itachi knew a fearsome right hook smashed into the side of his face, knocking him into Kisame. Naruto disappeared again then slammed head first into Kisame's stomach, eliciting a gasp in response.

Naruto felt pride in himself for having hit two such high ranking shinobi, but through his haze of anger at learning Itachi's identity, he failed to notice both of their slight changes in stance, preparing for a significantly greater level of attack.

Naruto did hand signs, then used his first public shadow jutsu again, which was much more effective in a tight corridor. "Shadow Style: Samurai's Grave!" The blades sprung up out of the ground like a shockwave, heading towards the S-class missing-nin at a surprising speed.

Naruto's eyes widened as Kisame stepped into the path of his attack, swinging his massive bandaged sword at the blades as they emerged, which instantly disintegrated from one swipe of the behemoth.

Kisame grinned. "My sword here eats chakra brat, and your shadows are made up entirely of it, meaning they are useless against me," Kisame said, grin still firmly planted in his face.

He then rushed forward much faster than his size should have allowed, swinging his sword at the defenceless boy, which slammed into his stomach. Naruto flew back with a cry of pain and a spray of blood, the scales of the sword exposing themselves the moment they felt Naruto's chakra, and tearing into his torso as a result.

Naruto let out a cry of pain, feeling the wound beginning to heal, though not liking the fact the it still hurt. He prepared to channel chakra to his eyes so that he could escape, but the next thing he knew the walls turned... pink?

Jiraiya appeared in front of him, a not before seen serious expression on his face. Naruto could feel the sheer power radiating from Jiraiya, realising that this was the man that trained his father, the guy who was able to defeat his fox half while he was rampaging by summoning the Shinigami.

Itachi and Kisame immediately broke and ran round the corner of the corridor at the sight of Jiraiya. Naruto got up and followed, hot on Jiraiya's heels, desperate to make the man who helped him lose his memory pay, as well as help Sasuke with his revenge.

There was an explosion as they ran round the corner, and they stopped to see a hole in the wall surrounded by black flames. Naruto went to rush through them, but looked back as Jiraiya laid a hand on his shoulder, shaking his head slightly.

"I can't believe they got through the stomach of the fire-mouth toad," he mutters to himself, pulling out a scroll, which he promptly sealed the flames into. Jiraiya turned to Naruto with a serious look in his eyes, his inner pervert completely suppressed.

"Naruto, we need to find Tsunade. I heard she was in Tanzaku town while I was out, so that's where we'll be headed. On the way I'll be teaching you an A-rank ninjutsu to help defend yourself."

They both went back to the hotel room and gathered their stuff, setting out that night so that Itachi and Kisame didn't 'test the waters' again. They travelled through the night and the morning as well, and only stopped around mid afternoon.

Jiraiya turned to Naruto, who had been silent throughout the journey, which was slightly worrying considering his situation. They were off the beaten track and there was no one around. Jiraiya turned to Naruto, intent on speaking with the nine tails.

"What do you want Pervy Sage?" Naruto looked at Jiraiya with his violet eyes, chakra blocks removed from his whole body so that he was more comfortable while no one could see them. Jiraiya couldn't help thinking how much more intimidating Naruto was with his long red hair and claws.

"Naruto, before I teach you this technique I want to know a few things."

Naruto narrowed his eyes slightly, but otherwise gave no other outward signs of his discomfort. "What kinds of things?"

"Will you attack Konoha?"

"No."

"How can I believe you?"

"If I wanted to kill every single snivelling human there that made my human life a misery then I would have done it already. As it is I have friends in Konoha, few as they are." Naruto looked at Jiraiya pointedly, making his position clear. Jiraiya was not someone he wanted against him when he wasn't at full strength, and lying to him wasn't going to accomplish that.

"Do you enjoy killing?"

"It depends."

"On what?"

"If I have to kill for a mission, I will enjoy killing the unlucky soul. If it is someone that hurts my friends, I will go to great lengths to extract as much personal pleasure out of them for as long as possible."

"If you enjoy killing so much, who's to say that you won't turn on your friends if you don't get to kill once in a while?"

Jiraiya was taken aback by Naruto's sudden change in demeanour. Where before he had been calm and collected, his chakra suddenly flared and he stood up angrily, his violet cloak activating unconsciously.

"**HOW DARE YOU! TURN ON THE ONLY PEOPLE THAT HAVE ACCEPTED ME! ARE YOU CRAZY?"**

"NARUTO! Calm down!"

"**No! How dare you insinuate that I would ever turn on those who alleviated the loneliness, who became my lights in the dark. Ever since SHE was killed thirteen years ago, I have HAD NOTHING!"**

Jiraiya was taken aback slightly by the ferocity of Naruto's words, assuming that whoever this 'she' was had been fairly important to the fox. Something niggled in the back of his mind, some revelation he was missing...

That's right! Sarutobi had said that the fox lost even more that night than Konoha, but for the life of him he couldn't figure out what the old man had meant. Naruto said 'she' was killed thirteen years ago, the night of the attack he would guess, meaning that the reason the nine tails attacked was related to the death of someone/something that was incredibly important to the fox.

He also mentioned that his current friends alleviated his loneliness, which also seemed to be his main reason for not killing them, so he could only assume that the fox felt something similar both before and after the interaction with this 'she'.

"Naruto I've heard enough." Naruto turned to look at him, his eyes glowing slightly with rage.

"Enough what? About how I'm just a mindless beast? A liability to everyone around me? Bane of the village?"

"No. What I'm saying is, I trust you enough to teach you the Rasengan."

"Say what?"

xxxx

Jiraiya sat up, unable to get the conversation with Naruto out of his head. He hadn't even known that tailed beasts had feelings, let alone that they could have partners. He always just assumed that they were 'mindless beasts' as Naruto himself had put it.

Jiraiya stared at his hands, and thanked his luck stars that the conversation had gone as well as it should. From what he could judge from Naruto's comments on loneliness, it stemmed from both halves.

The tailed had beasts had been around longer than anyone knew as well, with records of them being found way back towards the time of the Sage of the Six Paths, which was a thousand years ago as far as anyone could tell, give or take. Jiraiya shuddered to think what being lonely for that long could do to a person.

If a whole species had vilified him and made him lonely for some thousand years, Jiraiya didn't know whether he would be able to cope. This led to a sudden revelation on his part, and he looked to Naruto sleeping calmly across the clearing they had set up camp in. A new found respect for the demon wound its way into him, despite his efforts to remind himself that it killed Minato and had now joined with his son.

This didn't work, and the respect settled into him. To withdraw from trying to kill every person in sight and even to befriend some of them was downright incredible in his books, considering how long the nine tails had been oppressed and portrayed as a villainous force of nature.

If restraint had a face, it would be the new Naruto.

xxxx

"Ok Naruto, this is the Rasengan," Jiraiya said to the hyperactive, orange-clad, ramen obsessed shinobi in front of him. He held out his arm and the blue ball of spiralling death appeared in his hand.

Naruto watched as Jiraiya slammed the ball into a nearby tree, marvelling as the tree toppled at the site of impact, which had exploded from the force of the Rasengan after the technique had drilled through it somewhat.

"Alright, that was awesome! You have got to show me how to do that." Naruto sat on the fallen tree and waited for Jiraiya to tell him how to do it. His face fell slightly when Jiraiya pulled out a balloon filled with water. When and where he had got said balloon Naruto did not know.

"Here you go kid. The training for this technique requires three steps. The first step is to pop this balloon without using anything but your chakra," Jiraiya said, grabbing another balloon to demonstrate.

Naruto watched as the balloon in Jiraiya's hand started moving around like the water inside was boiling, before it burst in a shower of water. He looked at the balloon in his hand, then tried pouring chakra into it. Nothing happened until he realised he would have to move the chakra.

He thought about the way the balloon in Jiraiya's hand had burst. The water had moved like it was boiling, but it would take an incredible amount of chakra to heat the water up that quickly, and the technique didn't look very taxing.

That only left the possibility of Jiraiya moving the water somehow. It couldn't be pulsing the chakra in different direction in straight lines, as he had seen the way the chakra spun when Jiraiya used it on the tree.

Naruto's head whipped up as he realised what he had to do. The chakra had spun when Jiraiya had used it, and not in only one direction either, but lots of different directions at once. No one could say becoming the nine tails didn't do wonders for intelligence.

Jiraiya jumped back startled as Naruto suddenly sat straight up, as he had been sitting there staring at the ground for a few minutes. Jiraiya watched as Naruto stood up and attempted to do what he had done.

Naruto poured his chakra into the water balloon again, the slowly begun to spin the water like a whirlpool. Closing his eyes and concentrating, he begun to add revolutions in other directions, until he was sure he would be able to maintain at least ten different revolutions at once.

Opening his eyes and with a grunt of effort, he spun the chakra as hard he could in the ten different directions. Jiraiya watched as the water in the balloon looked like it was boiling, and then the balloon exploded violently, soaking Naruto's face and chest.

Jiraiya burst out laughing as Naruto threw the remains of the balloon at him in mock annoyance. They settled down quickly though, still not quite over the, _taxing_, conversation they had had earlier.

"Right then, the second stage is to do the same thing, but with a rubber ball," Jiraiya said, tossing said rubber ball to Naruto, who caught it deftly.

Naruto nodded to Jiraiya, then focused on the technique. He found that the ball wouldn't even budge with the effort he had put in before. He began to spin his chakra again, pumping as much power into the revolutions as he could. He was funnelling so much chakra into the ball that it made his arm hurt.

Unfortunately, both Naruto and Jiraiya forgot that Naruto now had more chakra than all five kages put together. The ball exploded with a massive outpouring of chakra, causing both Naruto and Jiraiya to go flying back. They both slammed into a tree simultaneously, before sliding down. A massive cloud of dust rose up into the air, above a large crater that had appeared where Naruto and Jiraiya had been standing.

Jiraiya was the first to get up, and slowly made his way over to Naruto, who was passed out at the stump of what was left of the tree he had hit, which had smashed and toppled over with the force that Naruto had hit it. Naruto himself was slumped against the tree with blood pouring down his head, and a large piece of wood sticking out of his back.

Jiraiya himself felt dizzy and put a hand to his head, then pulled it away to find it covered in blood. He checked himself for injury as quickly and completely as possible. He scooped Naruto up in his arms and carried him and his pack to another clearing.

He laid Naruto down so the wood sticking out of his back wouldn't be pushed in further. Due to Tsunade's insistence, he had learned one medical jutsu before he went off travelling on his own, which allowed him to stop bleeding. He was extremely grateful to her for that now.

He braced Naruto against a log in the clearing, then activated the medical jutsu in his left hand, holding it ready above Naruto's back. He placed his right hand on the stick, the slight movement eliciting a groan from the red head.

He took a deep breath, then gripped the wood and pulled it out, placing his left hand against the wound immediately, all in one fluid motion. A large arc of blood managed to spurt out of his back as Jiraiya changed hands.

Luckily Naruto didn't wake up, but he twitched a couple of times and moaned in pain, even though he was unconscious. Once the bleeding had stopped, Jiraiya used the medical jutsu on his wounds, not having enough chakra to finish 'healing' Naruto. He needed to get them to the nearest town for medical treatment.

xxxx

"Gaara." It was a simple name, in all actuality. Gaara had never thought about it before, but he supposed that his name meant quite a lot. To anyone who actually knew him, it represented everything that he was, a killer, a maniac, a demon host, the deranged son of the kazekage.

"What do you want?" Gaara asked, his deep, dry voice sending involuntary shivers down the kazekage's spine. He once again felt a pang of regret at what his son had become, and couldn't yet understand why Gaara would run from the stadium if he loved killing so much.

"I want to know, in no uncertain terms, why you decided to run from the crowded stadium when you felt the demon taking over. Why not stay and take as many lives as possible?"

Gaara looked at him with his cold and lifeless eyes, the green orbs seeming to reflect no light, no emotions able to be expressed in them other than rage. As Gaara spoke, some of the sand rose out of the gourd on his back.

"Why would I allow the demon to steal my prey?" he asked, seemingly unaware of the implications of viewing innocent people as prey. "Also, innocent people are not worth the blood they would stain my sand with. Only the strong deserve to be fed to my sand," he said calmly.

The kazekage appreciated a shinobi who could kill another human when ordered, to kill off his emotions for a mission. He did it all the time, he had to, as kazekage it was his duty. But it was only now that he realised that what he had created from Gaara was not a weapon, but an explosive, which unless handled correctly could bring down the area around it to rubble.

Inside, he wept, only now realising the full implications of what he had done. Gaara was not a shinobi, but a psychopath who kept mementos of strong foes in the form of the blood mixed into his sand. It was both disturbing and heartbreaking.

Gaara walked out and disappeared in a swirl of sand.

xxxx

Ooooooooo... Naruto just keeps getting bashed about doesn't he? Don't worry, he is going to go totally badarse soon. I mean, he already is, but _more_ badarse.

And sorry about the late update, Dark Souls 2 came out last weekend, so I was spending my time finding out just how many ways I could die in a videogame. Turns out a lot.


End file.
